A party at The Clink last night. It’s an old gaol on the south bank, which is now a rather macabre tourist attraction. We were shown around by a rather fat and very camp guide, who made the whole process of explaining the various nasty implements in there rather surreal.

Many of the founding fathers who landed on Plymouth Rock and established the first colony in America were once residents in there, as it was a place for heretics, people who picked the ‘wrong’ religion, debtors and prostitutes. They all had to pay for their stay, and food was generally whatever you could catch running around the bottom of your cell, ie rats. That was made doubly nasty by the fact that the floor of your cell was also your toilet and, being on the banks of the Thames, it often flooded up to two feet deep, so you could be up to your knees in floating faeces.

They still had a lot of the original instruments of punishment there, and our fixer was keen to point out that actual ‘torture’ per se was very rare, as it was illegal unless sanctioned directly by the crown. As such, only about 300 people were officially tortured between the 13th and 16th centuries. They only ever built two racks, which are often thought of as the most commonly-used torture implement.

However, punishment wasn’t illegal, because its aim wasn’t to extract information from someone, and it could entail whipping, crushing or cutting off bits of the body (and not only heads).

One particularly nasty method of punishment was a large iron boot, which they still have there. The foot would be placed inside, and wooden stakes hammered into it so that it completely filled out all of the available space, tightly packing the shoe and squeezing the foot. They would then pour in water so that the wood would slowly expand and crush the foot entirely. Next, they would likely put it into a fire so that the water would boil. And, just as happens when you boil ham, the flesh would bubble up and start to slip away from the bone, eventually leaving you with no foot; just some crushed bones protruding from the end of your leg.

That done, they’d throw you back into your cell with no bandage or medical aid and, inevitably, you’d pick up some dreadful disease from all the human waste on the floor of your toilet-cum-cell, and you’d die. Slowly and painfully.

Gruesome.

Tour aside, it was a dreadful party. Laid out like a bad family wedding with chairs around the edge of the room, lubricated by rough red wine and greasy food and interrupted at about eight by a short presentation nobody could hear.

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