HMP Holloway has been left to rot after it slammed its cell doors shut for the final time in 2016.
The site is now set to become a 900-home estate for the North London suburb, and work has been ongoing to raze the buildings.
But before they started a team of Urban Explorers snuck behind security fences to show what was left of the infamous prison.
Holloway first opened its doors in 1852 as a mixed-sex jail with early inmates including playwright Oscar Wilde. But it became female only around 50 years later in 1903.
It famously housed many Suffragettes after the ‘Votes for Women’ campaign incorporated property attacks, arson and bombings – resulting in four deaths and countless injuries.
These activities led to over 1,000 women being banged up at Holloway alone.
Urban explorers Urbandoned discovered water gushing into the derelict site where large sections of the roof had caved in.
Debris was strewn across the iron beds bolted to the floor in the ‘dorm’ style accommodation.
“They’re very cramped. Just about single beds [size] before they become a bit too thin. There’s a decent amount of light coming through these windows.
“But what I have noticed is you’ve got controls for ventilation here. Obviously inmates wouldn’t have been allowed to open the windows. The marks which I assume would be the vents behind here would be fully open,” revealed one of the explorers.
Urbandoned are three friends, Alistair, Alex and Theo, who have dedicated the past four years to capturing and exploring abandoned structures, mostly in the UK.
As they explored deeper, the rain continued to pour onto the bleak setting of the abandoned prison and they discovered scores of flooded rooms.
There were endless cells, mostly singles, but also many mixed dormitories. The prison had an estimated capacity of 500 women when it closed.
“Over the prison’s final decades in use, inspections told stories of sexual harassment, bullying, intimidation, poor hygiene, inmate safety concerns, and a lack of trained staff that would have contributed to an unfavourable atmosphere inside and outside of the prison. In 2016, an inmate at Holloway, Sarah Reed, was found deceased in her cell,” they added.
The team discover an opticians and pharmacy, a swimming pool, a sports hall and a gym, all in varying states of disrepair.
They summarised their visit as surreal. “[It’s a] building that seemed to have had all of the life drained from it, even when it was occupied.
“Removal isn’t the worst result for Holloway Prison. Its history is plentiful, yet tarnished, after failings in its care system were illustrated shortly before it shut down.”
The original prison was nicknamed The Castle and built as a ‘Terror to Evil Doers’. It was cleverly constructed in a star shape which allowed a single warden to overlook scores of troublesome prisoners.
Watch the full video from Urbandoned below, shot just days before the bulldozers moved in.
However this innovative design was somewhat foolishly eschewed by Holloway’s then Governor Joanna Kelley when it came to upgrading the dilapidated Victorian prison in 1967.
Kelley believed the star construction was wrong as most women prisoners were not violent at the time. However Kelley’s botched redesign led to the prison becoming ‘extremely difficult to run safely’.
The prison’s design, intended to create an atmosphere more akin to a hospital than a traditional prison, was deemed a failure in the 1980s. The absence of traditional wings or landings, combined with a labyrinth of corridors, made it challenging for warders to effectively monitor the inmates.
Holloway was overcrowded, its confined spaces were difficult for officers to manage and both prisoners and staff felt unsafe.
Incidents of self-harm, vandalism, and arson were rife and in 2015 the then Chancellor George Osbourne announced his plans to shutter the historic prison for good.
Watch drone footage of the site from Peabody the housing company that are transforming the prison into 900 new homes.