The Blind House
“Blind Houses” – so-called because they have no windows – can be found in several Wiltshire towns. Blind house is a local term used for a lock up in Wiltshire and Somerset. One of Trowbridge’s most recognizable landmarks, The Blind House was used as a lock-up for ‘overnight guests’ of the law before the building of the police station in 1854: wrongdoers locked up in the blind house would have ranged from serious criminals who would be held until they could be taken to Salisbury to be put on trial, to drunks who would be released when they had sobered up the next day. It stands by the river with an arched roof and knob finial. There is some debate over the date at which the Blind House was built. It is usually dated to 1758 because of the date carved in bold numbers, high on an interior wall in the left hand cell, but there are documentary references to the Blind House much earlier from around 1690. There are references in court records to stocks and pillory near the site as early as 1615, so an early date for the Blind House is not outside the realms of possibility.
Inside the building are two cells, popularly believed to be one for a man, one for a woman, with each cell having a bench for a bed as well as a toilet.
Sometimes, sympathetic bystanders would even fetch beer and feed it to the prisoners by using one of the long ‘churchwarden’ pipes pushed through a slit in the wall! There was a riot in the town in 1826 about the local fixing of higher prices for potatoes. One of the leaders, who was arrested and put in the Blind House, was rescued by his supporters taking off the roof – a pretty bold way to escape lock-up!
There was a proposal for the Blind House to be demolished in 1895 but this failed and instead the building was adopted by the Urban District Council instead.
The roof sustained serious damage in July 1942 when a German bomb fell on the upper part of Stallard Street, badly damaging what was the Royal British Legion Club (now Bridge House), and unfortunately resulting in the deaths of two civilians. The roof was finally restored in 1950 and in 1974 ownership passed to the Town Council, which carried out a restoration as part of the Jubilee celebrations of 1977.
