Opposite St. Sepulchre's, at the corner of the Old Bailey, rises the curved facade of the new Central Criminal Court, an imposing modern building by east west Mountford, completed in 1905. It occupies the site of Newgate Prison, some of the stones of which have been used in the rustica work of the lowest story. Over the main portal, in the Old Bailey, is inscribed �Defend the children of the poor and punish the wrong-doer �(Psalm lxxii. 4, Prayer Book version).
The Central Criminal Court, or Old Bailey Court, is the chief criminal court for London, Middlesex, and parts of Surrey, Kent, and Essex. It contains in all four courts. The trials are open to the public (entrance in Newgate St.), and are often crowded. On great occasions tickets of admission are issued by the Aldermen and Sheriffs. The Great Hall, with mural decorations by Sir W. B. Richmond (died 1921) and Gerald Moira, is open to the public on Tuesday and Friday, 10-4, if the sittings of the Court permit (closed in August). It contains a statue of Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845), by A. Drury (1913). A tablet in the lower hall records the constitutional obstinacy of the jury that in 1770 acquitted William Penn and William Mead of a charge of preaching to an unlawful assembly in Gracechurch Street.
NEWGATE PRISON, long the chief prison of London, was begun by George Dance, junction, in 1770 and completed in 1782, after having been partly destroyed by the Gordon Rioters in 1730. It was finally demolished in 1902 (see above). Public executions, previously carried out at Tyburn, took place in front of Newgate from 1783 to 1868 and then within the prison down to 1901. [Men are now executed at Pentonville or Wandsworth, women at Holloway.] Among the prisoners confined here were Anne Askew, Daniel Defoe, George Wither, Jack Sheppard, Jonathan Wild, Titus Oates, William Penn, and Lord George Gordon (who died of gaol fever in 1793). Mrs. Elizabeth Fry's successful efforts to improve the conditions of prison life in Newgate laid the foundation of prison reform throughout Europe (1817).
Old Bailey, the name of which may possibly have same connection with the Ballium, or open space outside the City Walls, leads to Ludgate Hill. Some remains of the Roman Wall were found when Newgate Prison was pulled down in 1902. Jonathan Wild (hanged 1725), the notorious thief-catcher and criminal, lived at No. 68. Milton's writings justifying the execution of Charles I. were burned by the common hangman in the Old Bailey in 1660.
