Unlocked: The Story of the Oxford Castle

It wasn't easy trying to find something touristy and different to do in a city that I consider to be my third home, or that Alex, a good friend from grad school and currently living in Oxford with hubby Tim and baby Maya, had not done before.

After a cuppa tea and a really gross scone with fake clotted cream, we decided to get to the Oxford Castle to learn about corporal punishment, inhumanity and maltreatment of prisoners in the days of yore.

We exposed ourselves to the "1000 years of history and the revealing episodes of violence, executions, great escapes, betrayal and romance" in the gaols (aka British jails).

What we learned:

- A woman who had been convicted of infanticide, Anne Green, survived her own hanging in the 18th century.

- Up to 25 gaolers were held in a cell about the size of your bathroom for weeks or months at a time.

- Debtors were the most common prisoners in the gaol.

- All executed prisoners would be cadavers for scientific research. It was every prisoners fear that they would be dissected alive.






And finally, that we were in the same space as Brad Pitt had once been. We felt his presence.