IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Ponsonby Terrace, DERBY, DE1 1DT

The terrace has been redeveloped and the houses are more often then not semi-detached houses.

The houses on the right back on to the abandoned Derby Friargate station site.

The way that office blocks have been built on this site behind the facade can be seen here. The building opened in 1827 as the County Gaol. In 1886 its name was changed to HM Prison Derby. From 1919-29 it acted as a military prison and then for part of the period 1933-88 it functioned as an up-market Greyhound Stadium. It is now a business park on South Street, at the end of Vernon Street.

An improvement on the old prison and terraced houses that used to be here. Whether they will last as long as the demolished buildings remains to be seen.

A rainy morning in early August.

This is a business centre and housing development. This used to be the grounds of the Greyhound Stadium, which was built in 1932. Before that it was Derby's Prison where the last public hanging in England was performed on April 11th 1862. The Greyhound Stadium closed in 1988 and this area was redeveloped in 1996. They have kept the original frontage of the prison.

South Street as it crosses the junction with Vernon Street. You can see what is left of the gate house and wall of the old Derby Prison to the right of the image.

Originally built as a prison in 1827 and was also years after it closed in 1929 a BMX Track in the 1980's. Now called Vernon Gate and an area full of offices and some apartments.

Although only the facade with its entrance remains, office blocks having been built on the site, visitors can still get a very real sense of the size of the former building. The building opened in 1827 as the County Gaol. In 1886 its name was changed to HM Prison Derby and for more than 100 years it was home to generations of thieves, fraudsters and murderers. Initially executions took place in the middle of the road at the far end of Friar Gate but later on, in front of the Gaol itself. The last execution inside the prison was in 1907. From 1919 -29 it acted as a military prison and then for part of the period 1933-88 it functioned as an up-market Greyhound Stadium.

Severe, as prisons should be, and noble, large expanses of blank stone and Greek Doric columns at the gateway. By Francis Goodwin, 1823-27. Grade II listed. Nowadays, those walking through the entrance are condemned to nothing more than the modern offices (Vernon Gate) which lie behind, and which are probably a little less mean than their antecedent.