The Cage

Image: © Bob Harvey Taken: 16 Jun 2023

Built as a village lock-up in the 19th century , and later converted to house a fire engine (the roller doors are far more suitable for that than to restrain miscreants). In the second world war it again housed the police, but it is now a local history display and visitors centre, open by prior appointment or otherwise intermittently. This is a grade II listed building - see https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1310221?section=official-list-entry. A local website (https://www.parsondrove.net/john-peck-the-cage/ ), quoting locally famous diarist John Peck gives the date of construction as 1829, the Historic England listing gives it as 1816, based on an inscription on the gable. I managed an unclear photograph of the heavily weathered datestone, which does read mdcccxvi (1816). The only reason to give credence to the diary date of 1829, is that John Peck paid for the construction, and the arrival of the navigators to construct the North Level Main Drain, and the redevelopment of the Inn, must have been around then. And Yet, and yet, Peck was appointed parish constable in 1816, so his interest in local law and order coincides with the earlier date, the one cast in stone. The clock tower was added for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897. (Image).

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