Newgate Prison (also known as the Old Bailey after the street on which it stands) now stands upon its site. The original door from a prison cell used to house St. Oliver Plunkett in 1681 is on display at St. Peter's Church in Drogheda, Ireland. The original iron gate leading to the gallows was used for decades in an alleyway in Buffalo, New York, USA and is currently housed in that city at Canisius College. Other famous prisoners at Newgate include: The phrase "[as] black as Newgate's knocker" is a Cockney reference to the door knocker on the front of the prison.
Old Newgate Prison was discovered at this site on the west side of Talcott Mountain, then part of Simsbury, in 1705. A mine was in operation in 1707, created by digging a vertical shaft and tunneling horizontally, with additional vertical shafts dug for ventilation. The mine operated until 1745. About half of the extant tunnels can be seen. The Colony of Connecticut then converted the tunnel network into a prison, naming it after London's Newgate Prison. The first prisoner for whom the state has surviving documentation, John Hinson, was committed for burglary in 1773, and escaped in 1774. During the American Revolutionary War,