Vale of White Horse District Council
Abbey House, Abbey Close,
Abingdon, OX14 3JE
Email: comments@whitehorsedc.gov.uk
Telephone: 01235 520202

Vale of White Horse District Council

The history of the Old Gaol

The Old Gaol was completed in 1811 by Napoleonic prisoners of war. It housed all prisoners for the County of Berkshire for 50 years and has the distinction of being the first British example of a gaol built with wings extending from a central core.

The Old Gaol was opened as a leisure centre in 1974 and closed in 2002 after the White Horse Leisure and Tennis Centre was opened in Audlett Drive.

In November 2004 the Vale and Oxfordshire County Council commissioned research from ABL Cultural Consulting into the feasibility of the Old Gaol site being used for community use, including space for a cinema, theatre, museum and library, as well as commercial space.

The project was overseen by a steering group which included members of APAGE, an alliance of local arts groups. Members of relevant Abingdon societies were also consulted by ABL including Friends of Abingdon, the Unicorn Theatre, Abingdon Film Society, and Abingdon Artists.

ABL concluded that the scheme would have cost around £20million in capital and would have had up to £500,000 a year revenue costs. The consultants predicted there would be no grant funding available for such a scheme and that the demand would be limited, due to other facilities available both within Abingdon and in the surrounding area.

ABL did say a small scale (around 250 seats), flexible performance space would be of use to the town.

Both the Vale and Oxfordshire County Council agreed that the costs were prohibitive and Abingdon Town Council, which considered moving the town museum into the Old Gaol complex, also accepted it would not be able to afford its part in the scheme.

In December 2005 the Vale Council Executive agreed to sell the site for development with the stipulation that the site would retain some degree of public access.

In January 2007 the Old Gaol was put on the market for development bids and included detailed briefings for potential developers about the site and its possible uses.

More than 100 expressions of interest were made but only eight resulted in final bids. Of these, four were short-listed in July with an October deadline for detailed bids. In December Cranbourne Homes was selected as the preferred developer.