HM Prison Shepton Mallet
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| Location | Shepton Mallet, Somerset |
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| Status | Closed |
| Security class | Adult Male/Category C Lifer |
| Opened | 1625 |
| Closed | 2013 |
| Website | Shepton Mallet at justice.gov.uk |
HMP Shepton Mallet, sometimes known as Cornhill, is a former prison located in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, England. When it closed in 2013, it was the United Kingdom's oldest operating prison, and had been since the closure of HMP Lancaster Castle in 2011. Before closure Shepton Mallet was a Category C Lifer Prison holding 189 prisoners. The prison building is grade II* listed. Its closure was announced in January 2013.
The prison was established as a House of Correction in 1625, to comply with an Act of King James I in 1609 requiring that every county have such a House. In the 17th century, Shepton Mallet was not the only place of imprisonment in Somerset: the County Gaol was in Ilchester, and there was another House of Correction at Ilchester and also at Taunton. In these times all prisoners, men, women and children, were held together in reportedly dreadful conditions. The gaoler was not paid, instead making an income from fees from his prisoners (for example, for providing them with liquor).
In 1773, a commissioner appointed by Parliament to inspect prisons around the country reported that sanitation at Shepton Mallet House of Correction was extremely poor. He said:
Many who went in healthy are in a few months changed to emaciated, dejected objects. Some are seen pining under diseases, expiring on the floors, in loathsome cells, of pestilential fevers, and the confluent smallpox. Victims, I will not say to cruelty, but I must say to the inattention of the Sheriffs, and Gentlemen in the commission of peace. The cause of this distress is, that many prisons are scantily supplied, and some almost totally unprovided with the necessaries of life.
In 1790 additional land was purchased to extend the prison, and around this time men and women began to be held in separate areas. Further extensions were carried out in 1817 to 1822, at around which time Shepton Mallet held about 200 prisoners.
In 1823, a large treadwheel was built within the prison on which men who had been sentenced to hard labour would serve their punishment. 40 men would tread the wheel for many hours at a time, a punishment which was recorded as causing hernias in some convicts. The wheel was used to power a grain mill situated outside the prison wall. The wheel remained in use until 1890.
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