Description:A pen and ink sketch on a blank white postcard. View of the lock-up in Gnosall with the inscription: 'Jail / Gnosall'. Signed 'ESPE / 1923'. Dimensions 88mm x 140mm.
Artist: Sydney Pearson (1890-1948). He was an amateur artist and was a railway clerk by profession.
Gnosall village lock-up, on Station Road, was built in 1830. Lock-ups, often found in rural communities, were a convenient place to detain vagrants and local drunks. Only three lock-ups survive in the county, the other two can be found in Stafford and at Alton. Gnosall lock-up was re-erected by the side of the A518 when plans to widen the road went ahead after a lorry drove into the building in the mid-1960s. Funds to move the building were raised by the Women's Institute.