Norman Cross prison in Cambridgeshire was home to up to 7,000 inmates during French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars
The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars saw thousands of enemy prisoners incarcerated in the UK; so many that the Admiralty, with responsibility for their welfare, had to devise swift solutions to cope with rocketing numbers.
One was the construction of what was reputedly the first purpose-built prisoner of war camp, sited on the Great North Road in Cambridgeshire – far from the sea so prisoners could not easily escape back to France.
