Exeter (HM Prison)

HMP Exeter

HM Prison, Exeter in 2008
Location	Exeter, Devon
Security class	Adult Male/Local
Capacity	561
Population	533 (as of July 2005)
Opened	1850
Managed by	HM Prison Services
Governor	Pete Elbourn
Website	Exeter at justice.gov.uk

HM Prison Exeter is a local men's prison, located in Exeter in the county of Devon, England. The term 'local' means that this prison holds people on remand to the local courts. Exeter Prison is operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service.

In the reign of King Henry I (1100–1135) the manor of Bicton, near Exeter, was granted by the king to John Janitor, who held the manor by the feudal tenure of grand serjeanty requiring him to provide a county jail, which was an honourable position of trust. The Latin noun Janitor means "door-keeper", generally understood in the sense janitor carceris, "door-keeper of a jail". Thus the tenant took his surname from his form of tenure. The county prison was later transferred to a building beneathExeter Castle in the county capital Exeter, but the feudal tenant of Bicton was nevertheless for many centuries required to meet part of the repair and maintenance costs of the newly sited jail. The Devon topographer John Swete (d.1821) stated that Dennis Rolle Esq. (d.1797), the proprietor of Bicton at the time of his visit, had paid the sum of £1,000 to the Treasury to be released in perpetuity from his vestigial feudal liabilities. The release was effected by an Act of Parliament in 1787, Public Act, 27 George III, c. 59 summarised as:

"An Act for making and declaring the Gaol for the County of Devon, called the High Gaol, a Public and Common Gaol; and for discharging Denys Rolle and John Rolle Esquires, and their respective Heirs and Assigns, from the Office of Keeper of the said Gaol; and for improving and enlarging the same or building a new one; and also for taking down the Chapel in the Castle of Exeter; and for other Purposes therein mentioned".