''Smedjegården'' (literally: "Blacksmiths' Yard"), initially ''Nya smedje
gården'' ("New Blacksmiths' Yard"), was a prison in
Stockholm
Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
, in use between 1636 and 1896.
The name was derived from a prison, similarly known as ''
Smedjegården,'' in the dungeons of the royal castle ''
Tre Kronor,'' in use until the castle was destroyed by fire in 1697. There the prisoners were made to labor in the castle's
smithy.
The ''Nya smedjegården'' was founded in 1636 at the street
Drottninggatan
Drottninggatan (''Queen Street'') in Stockholm, Sweden, is a major pedestrian street. It stretches north from the bridge Riksbron at Norrström, in the district of Norrmalm, to Observatorielunden in the district of Vasastaden.
Composition
Formi ...
in Stockholm. From 1664 onward, it was the site for prisoners awaiting
death penalty
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
in Stockholm. The building housed also a
house of correction
The house of correction was a type of establishment built after the passing of the Elizabethan Poor Law (1601), places where those who were "unwilling to work", including vagrants and beggars, were set to work. The building of houses of correctio ...
, an infamous
''(
Rosenkammaren Rosenkammaren (literally: 'The Rose Chamber') was a torture chamber in the prison ''Nya smedjegården'' in Stockholm.
It consisted of a long room, flooded with knee deep water from a spring. The prisoners sentenced to be tortured were chained by a ...
),'' until the abolition of torture in 1772, and an
orphanage
An orphanage is a Residential education, residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the Childcare, care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parent ...
''(
Allmänna Barnhuset)'' until 1886.
Until 1849, the prison was used for both male and female prisoners—normally not kept separate from each other.
Then ''Smedjegården'' was transformed into a
women's prison
This article discusses the incarceration of women in correctional facilities. As of 2013 across the world, 625,000 women and children were being held in penal institutions, and the female prison population was increasing in all continents. . The institution was replaced in the 1890s, and the building demolished. On the site, Stockholm's
People's House
People's Houses (russian: Народный дом) were originally leisure and cultural centres built with the intention of making art and cultural appreciation available to the working classes. The first establishment of this type appeared in T ...
was erected.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nya smedjegarden
Social history of Sweden
19th-century disestablishments in Sweden
History of Stockholm
Women's prisons
Defunct prisons in Sweden
17th century in Stockholm