Found at excavation work in 2014.

B Division Panopticon (airing yard)

Date of creation: c 1900-1940

On display at Adina Hotel reception.

"A small deposit of leather shoes was discovered with fill overlying one of the triangular yards of the eastern panopticon exercise yard at B Division B2.

The shoes were all leather with hobnails in the soles and some displayed the cuts and sewing on the top of the shoe forming an open ‘Broad Arrow’ a commonwealth symbol used to identify government property.

The shoes varied in size and there were 6 left and 10 right shoes. Two, due to fragmentary survival, were indeterminate.

4 shoes had the open Broad Arrow symbol. It seems likely that the shoes were either manufactured on site for prisoner use or they were made at a government suppliers elsewhere for prisoner use at Pentridge. It is less clear how and why they were deposited over the foundation remains of B2. It is unlikely that 18 shoes were dumped in one of the yards while it was in use. Equally it is unlikely that they were deposited when the yards were disused but still standing as the shoe deposit lies on sub surface soils, below the historic yard surface. So it is likely that the shoes were deposited after the yards had been demolished - sometime in the interwar period - but before the foundations were covered with fill and the courtyard concreted. Why they were deposited in the yard is unknown.

The shoes contribute to the overall cultural heritage value of the site. They provide some insight into prison life in the first quarter of the 20th C. They have a potential to contribute to the interpretation of the site’s history through display and they are considered to have moderate significance." (1)

(1) Former HM Prison Pentridge, Report on the 2014 Archaeological Excavations.