CHAPTER II.—FORMATION OF THE BARRACKS.
Some idea has already been given of the formation of the Norman Cross barracks; but a fuller and more detailed account of them may, perhaps, be interesting.
Norman Cross is the name given to that part of the parish of Yaxley, in the county of Huntingdon, where that grand old thoroughfare of England, the Great North Road, along which coaches might drive four abreast, is crossed by the Peterborough Road. In one corner, bounded by these two roads, is a large piece of pasture land, some forty acres in extent, which Government purchased in 1796, for the purpose of erecting barracks on it for prisoners of war, then multiplying fast, and for a large number of soldiers to guard them.
The situation was exceedingly healthy, being at the highest point of the road sloping up for a mile and a half from what was then Whittlesea Mere. It was not too near the sea, to make escape more easy, yet near enough to Yarmouth, King’s Lynn and Wisbeach, to facilitate the landing and transport of prisoners to their destination. It was on the Great North Road, only 78 miles from London, and near enough to towns to obtain provisions with ease and in abundance. It was in fact selected by the War Office on all these accounts from amongst several other eligible sites in the kingdom.
The accounts given of the plan on which these barracks were constructed do not altogether agree in particulars. There is a plan of them still in existence which has received the imprimatur of Major Kelly the Commandant, his signature being on the back of it in testimony of its correctness. We shall not therefore be very far wrong in making that our main guide in the description of them.
The part where the prisoners were confined consisted of sixteen large buildings of wood, very long and lofty, each two stories high, placed at the end of four rectangular pieces of land (four in each), nearly in the centre of the forty acre field, and occupying altogether some fifteen acres. Each rectangle was separated from the others, and was surrounded by very high and strong palisades. They were placed symmetrically round a circular block-house, mounted with cannon, which commanded every one of the sixteen buildings, as well as the ground attached to them. There were therefore four of these huge buildings, side by side at intervals, at one end of each quadrangle, which was again sub-divided so that every building had an equal portion of ground belonging to it.
A wall of similar palisading (some say it was of brick, but this is more than doubtful,) surrounded the whole of the quadrangles at some distance.
The prison was constructed to contain 5,000
prisoners, and compared with some other places of confinement in England for a similar purpose must have been tolerably comfortable.