Norman Cross prison in Cambridgeshire was home to up to 7,000 inmates during French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars
The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars saw thousands of enemy prisoners incarcerated in the UK; so many that the Admiralty, with responsibility for their welfare, had to devise swift solutions to cope with rocketing numbers.
One was the construction of what was reputedly the first purpose-built prisoner of war camp, sited on the Great North Road in Cambridgeshire – far from the sea so prisoners could not easily escape back to France.
Assembled in four months using 500 carpenters and labourers, the camp, south-west of Peterborough near the village of Yaxley, housed 7,000 mainly French prisoners – mostly low-ranking soldiers and sailors, with some privateers – at its peak between 1797 and 1814.
Now the historic Napoleonic Norman Cross prison depot site, which contains the remains of the camp, has been saved for the nation after being bought by Nene Park Trust with £200,000 grant funding from Historic England and £50,000 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
