Bocardo Prison

Its origins were medieval, and its most famous prisoners were the Protestant Oxford martyrs (Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley) in 1555.

[1] Other prisoners included a number of Quakers, like Elizabeth Fletcher, among the first preachers of the Friends to come to Oxford in 1654.

[6] John Powderham, who claimed to be the real king in the reign of Edward II of England, was imprisoned there in or shortly before 1318, prior to being hanged.

[7] The prison was demolished in 1771, for a road construction scheme, following an Act of Parliament in 1770, and as part of the wider city redevelopment in Oxford under John Gwynn.

[9] An essay presented to the Oxford University Genealogical and Heraldic Society in 1835 suggested that the name was "derived from the Anglo-Saxon, bochord, a library or archive".

Engraving of part of Bocardo prison by N. Calcott in 1770, over Oxford's old Northgate.
The door of the cell from the Bocardo Prison where Thomas Cranmer was held before his execution in 1556; one of the Oxford Martyrs. It is now preserved in the Saxon bell tower of St Michael at the North Gate Church, Oxford, which is adjacent to the site of the prison.
Venn diagram representation of Modus Bocardo