HM PRISON Morton Hall had many roles — stately home, wartime RAF base, Borstal, men’s open jail — before gaining its present status as a semi-open women’s prison two years ago.
Nine miles from Lincoln and close to the ancient Fosse Way, now the A46, the sprawling complex is surrounded by farmland, its 16ft, olive green fencing screened by a line of towering oaks, chestnuts and sycamores.
Tuesday was not a visiting day and for much of the afternoon a quiet lethargy seemed to rule. No one left and no one arrived, save an electrical contractor, whose presence required the lengthy attention of four prison officers before the main gate was opened.
To complete a circuit of the prison’s outer perimeter took 20 minutes and had a convicted Jamaican drug smuggler been allowed out for the same stroll, she would have gazed upon a summer portrait of the English countryside: fields of motionless corn, a fisherman casting his rod in a pond, three foals grazing, a crowing cockerel and a group of young boys splashing about in a small lake.
One mile from Morton Hall is Swinderby, a village that proudly points to its entry in the Domesday Book. Harry Geeson, 69, who has lived here all his life, worked as a joiner at the prison for 13 years until his retirement in 1998.
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Sitting on an upturned milk crate outside the village post office, he was mildly surprised to learn that a majority of Morton Hall women inmates were now foreign citizens, but added that no one would be getting very excited about it. “It doesn’t really bother us because we never see them,” he said.
It may only be a mile away, but for all the impact the prison and its 356 inmates make on its nearest neighbours it might as well be in the West Indies.
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