.

The situation was exceedingly healthy, being at the highest point of the
road sloping up for a mile and a half from what was then Whittlesea Mere.
It was not too near the sea, to make escape more easy, yet near enough to
Yarmouth, King's Lynn and Wisbeach, to facilitate the landing and
transport of prisoners to their destination. It was on the Great North
Road, only 78 miles from London, and near enough to towns to obtain
provisions with ease and in abundance. It was in fact selected by the
War Office on all these accounts from amongst several other eligible
sites in the kingdom.

The accounts given of the plan on which these barracks were constructed
do not altogether agree in particulars. There is a plan of them still in
existence which has received the imprimatur of Major Kelly the
Commandant, his signature being on the back of it in testimony of its
correctness. We shall not therefore be very far wrong in making that our
main guide in the description of them.

The part where the prisoners were confined consisted of sixteen large
buildings of wood, very long and lofty, each two stories high, placed at
the end of four rectangular pieces of land (four in each), nearly in the
centre of the forty acre field, and occupying altogether some fifteen
acres. Each rectangle was separated from the others, and was surrounded
by very high and strong palisades. They were placed symmetrically round
a circular block-house, mounted with cannon, which commanded every one of
the sixteen buildings, as well as the ground attached to them. There
were therefore four of these huge buildings, side by side at intervals,
at one end of each quadrangle, which was again sub-divided so that every
building had an equal portion of ground belonging to it.

A wall of similar palisading (some say it was of brick, but this is more
than doubtful,) surrounded the whole of the quadrangles at some distance.

{Norman Cross Prison. From the original plan: p27.jpg}

The prison was constructed to contain 5,000 prisoners, and compared with
some other places of confinement in England for a similar purpose must
have been tolerably comfortable.

Besides these central buildings, which may be called the prison proper,
there were a great many others scattered about, intended for various
purposes, such as kitchens, bakehouses, guard-rooms, turnkeys' lodges,
and, more important than all to the safe custody of the prisoners, two
large wooden barracks lik