[1] When Bristol was made a county in 1373, the 'gate of the same town called Neweyate' was mentioned in the perambulation that defined its boundaries.

[3] In William Worcester's topographical survey of Bristol in 1480 he suggests that the Newgate was a replacement for an old gate that had now been thrown down.

[1] In 1461, one of Bristol's former customs officers, John Heysaunt, was charged with plotting the death of Edward IV, who had seized the throne the previous year.

His head was then 'placed on Bristol’s Newgate, in full view of those travelling to and from the town, to strike terror into the hearts of all those delinquents tempted to resist the new king'.

[9] In 1517 a scandal arose in Bristol when it was discovered that money customarily donated for the relief of the prisoners at Newgate was being embezzled by the jailers.

[11] When the antiquary John Leland visited Bristol c. 1540 he noted that 'Newgate (as me thinketh) is in the outer wall by the castle, and a chapel over it.

[14] Between the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and 1687 large numbers of religious dissenters, including Quakers, Baptists, Independents and Presbyterians, were imprisoned in Newgate for refusing to take an oath of loyalty to the king.

From 1723 the walk from Newgate to the gallows on St Michael's Hill was replaced by a ride in a cart or coach.

The statues were acquired by the Bristol brass manufacturer, William Reeve, who placed them on the inner side of the Arno's Court Triumphal Arch, which stood in front of his folly, the Black Castle.

He noted that the "dungeon", or night room for male felons, was eighteen steps underground and only 17 feet in diameter.

[28] A plaque on the Galleries shopping centre, commemorates Newgate Gaol and, in particular, Francis Greenway, who was imprisoned there in 1812 and the poet, Richard Savage, who died there in 1743.