What is the Southwell Workhouse used for now?

What is the Southwell Workhouse used for now?

The Workhouse provided temporary accommodation for the homeless until 1976, and part of the site was converted into a residential home for elderly people.

What were the living conditions like in The Workhouse?

Conditions were cramped with beds squashed together, hardly any room to move and with little light. When they were not in their sleeping corners, the inmates were expected to work.

When did the Southwell Workhouse close?

Although the workhouse ceased to exist from 1929, becoming a “public assistance institution”, its legacy of social welfare is ongoing to this day.

Do you need to book for The Workhouse at Southwell?

Opening times at The Workhouse and Infirmary When visiting The Workhouse there is no requirement to pre-book unless it is for a group of 15 or more people.

What jobs did they do in the workhouse?

The women mostly did domestic jobs such as cleaning, or helping in the kitchen or laundry. Some workhouses had workshops for sewing, spinning and weaving or other local trades. Others had their own vegetable gardens where the inmates worked to provide food for the workhouse.

What were the punishments in workhouses?

Punishments: Punishments inflicted by the master and the board included sending people to the refractory ward, and for children, slaps with the rod; or for more serious offences inmates were summoned to the Petty Sessions and in some cases jailed for a period of time.

Can you visit workhouses?

Free admission. The former Christchurch parish and union workhouse. As well as recording its workhouse past, this lovely building (dating from 1764) has a wide range of displays exploring the social and natural history of the area.

What did children drink in the workhouse?

Girls and small children: Bread and butter; drink, milk and water. In 1899, an official of the Scottish Local Government Board, William Penney, suggested that the excessive consumption of tea amongst female workhouse inmates was to blame for the number of pauper lunatics.

Are there still workhouses today?

The 1948 National Assistance Act abolished the last vestiges of the Poor Law, and with it the workhouses. Many of the workhouse buildings were converted into retirement homes run by the local authorities; slightly more than half of local authority accommodation for the elderly was provided in former workhouses in 1960.

Are there any workhouses left?

Most surviving parish poorhouses workhouses are now used as private houses although a few have other purposes.

What did workhouses eat?

The main constituent of the workhouse diet was bread. At breakfast it was supplemented by gruel or porridge — both made from water and oatmeal (or occasionally a mixture of flour and oatmeal). Workhouse broth was usually the water used for boiling the dinner meat, perhaps with a few onions or turnips added.

Are workhouse records online?

Few workhouse records are online, so the best place to start is often the County Record Office local to the institution. You will need to know roughly when your ancestor was in the workhouse and, if it was after 1834, which Poor Law Union their parish belonged to.

Does ancestry have workhouse records?

For example, Ancestry has online collections from the London Metropolitan Archives, including London workhouse records. It also has collections for Warwickshire, Norfolk, Bedfordshire and Cardiff.