Borstal, Kent

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Borstal
Borstal Village from the M2 bridge.
Borstal shown within Kent
OS grid reference	TQ731668
District	Medway
Shire county	Kent
Region	South East
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Rochester
Postcode district	[[ME1 postcode area|]]
Dialling code	01643
Police	Kent
Fire	Kent
Ambulance	South East Coast
European Parliament	South East England
UK Parliament	Rochester and Strood
List of places: UK • England • Kent

Coordinates: 51°22′27″N 0°29′11″E / 51.374098, 0.486304

Borstal is an ancient village in the unitary authority of Medway (part of the ceremonial county of Kent) in South East England. Its name came from Anglo-Saxon burg-steall "fort site" or "place of refuge", ^[1] likely referring to the hill there. The hill is now the home to Fort Borstal. The village is mentioned in Domesday Book.

Today the "village" is part of the built-up area of Rochester. The parish church, built in 1879, is dedicated to St Matthew.

Fort Borstal was built as an afterthought from the 1859 Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom, by convict labour between 1875 and 1885. It is of polygonal design and was never originally armed. An anti-aircraft battery was based there in the Second World War.

Outside Borstal village is Borstal Prison, a large convict prison, founded in 1870. Borstal Prison was once an experimental juvenile detention centre of the reformatory type set up in 1902. Because it was the first detention centre of its kind in the UK, the word "borstal" became synonymous with other detention centres for youths across the country, and elsewhere. In view of that connotation, the centre is now called Cookham Wood, and is called a Young Offenders Institution.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Borstal website, including history (village and prison)
• Young Offenders Institution

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