Northallerton Treadmills sculpture recalls site's prison history

The £85,000 statue has been designed by sculptor Ray Lonsdale

A statue of a girl jailed for stealing a loaf of bread 150 years ago has been installed in a North Yorkshire town.

The work, by sculptor Ray Lonsdale, depicts 11-year-old Sophia Constable, who was imprisoned for three weeks in 1873 in Northallerton Prison.

It has been placed in the town's new Treadmills development, which was built on the site of the former jail.

The prison was closed in 2013 more than 200 years after it had taken its first inmates, after opening in 1788.

Sophia Constable was the youngest girl to be imprisoned at the jail and the £85,000 statue features her clutching a loaf of bread as a prison warden puts her hand on her shoulder.

She was jailed for stealing the threepenny loaf from a shop in Whitby, despite claiming her crime had been motivated by hunger.

Sophia Constable spent three weeks at Northallerton Prison for stealing a loaf of bread from a shop in Whitby

The prison was designed by John Carr, who worked on stately homes such as Harewood House in Leeds and Fairfax House in York.

It was later extended with additional wings for female prisoners and an infirmary.

Treadmills were introduced at Northallerton in the 1820s as a way to further punish inmates before the devices were abolished with the passing of the Prisons Act of 1898.

After the prison closed, the site was bought by Hambleton Council and has been turned into the Treadmills development, which includes a cinema, shops and businesses.

The former Northallerton Prison closed in 2013