Newgate: London's Prototype of Hell, Stephen Halliday, (Sutton, £20)

London's infamous Newgate Prison may have been demolished in 1902, but its reputation persists to this day. Stephen Halliday explains why in this engrossing account of the prison's grim history.

Although much of our knowledge of Newgate is garnered from the likes of Dickens and Thackeray, the prison dates from the 12th century, having occupied the site of one of London's ancient Roman gates. Rebuilt five times over the years, at various points it accommodated notables such as Giacomo Casanova, Daniel Defoe, and Pennsylvania founder William Penn.

Conditions appear to have been pretty dreadful "an emblem of hell itself", to quote Defoe. Nevertheless, inmates had to pay for their accommodation, food and clothing, and in tune with the times, the more you could afford, the better treatment you got.

Newgate was perhaps most notorious as a holding venue for those sentenced to hang, their final journeys to the gallows at Tyburn eventually becoming so chaotic that a more convenient venue right outside the prison had to be substituted.

Only in 1868 were executions relocated to the privacy of the prison interior. Henceforth the pace of change was painfully slow, as evidenced in Halliday's useful coverage of the wider context of developments in penal reform.

Hard labour' persisted until 1948, the death penalty for murder until 1965, and theoretically was still in force until 1998 for treason and for arson in the royal docks.

Of course, Oxford has its own former prison, and if our approach to reusing redundant buildings may be somewhat more enlightened, its current occupants share one thing in common with those of an earlier era in that they too pay for their lodgings.

Perhaps there should be a copy of this in the bedrooms at the new hotel. If nothing else, it would ensure there were few complaints about room service.