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HomeNewsPortion of the courtyard wall at Lindsay's old jail to be torn...

Portion of the courtyard wall at Lindsay’s old jail to be torn down

KAWARTHA LAKES-A piece of Kawartha Lakes history is slated for demolition in the spring.

The eastern portion of the courtyard wall at the original Lindsay Jail, now the Old Gaol Museum, is structurally unsound and will be torn down in the spring of 2020 according to the City.

“There is an engineering report that the wall is not structurally sound and needs to be removed.” said Director Craig Shanks in an email to Kawartha 411.

The courtyard has been walled in since the jail was first built in 1863.

According to the Historical Society the courtyard is where hangings took place and where at least three bodies are buried. Gallows were constructed for each hanging and then removed. Couryards were also used by inmates for recreation and exercise, hard labour sentences and in the early days, the inmates chopped the wood that heated the town’s public buildings.

The courtyard walls were originally constructed of red brick, which would have been made by a nearby brickyard from local clay according to historians. After standing for 127 years the courtyard walls were replaced and built higher to prevent jailbreaks in 1990.

From 1985 and 1990 alone there had been three successful jailbreaks.

According to officials future use of the open courtyard has not yet been “fully determined”. There are reports it will be used for City parking but that has not been confirmed.

 

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Pamela Vanmeer
Pamela Vanmeerhttps://www.kawartha411.ca/
Pamela VanMeer is a two time winner of the prestigious Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) Award. Her investigative reports on abuse in Long Term Care Homes garnered international attention for the issue and won the Ron Laidlaw Award. She is a former reporter and anchor at CHEX News, now Global Peterborough and helped launch the New CHEX Daily, a daily half hour talk show. While at CHCH News in Hamilton she covered some of the biggest news stories of the day.

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