The work at Chattenden had, however, been preceded by other similar and more extensive undertakings in England. The first was the preparation of a new and very simple prison edifice at Borstal, near Rochester; the second, the erection of the great separate prison at Wormwood Scrubs, with which I was myself closely identified from the beginning. The prison at Borstal was to house convicts who were to be employed under the war department in building fortifications for the defence of Chatham arsenal, and indirectly of London. As a preliminary measure, a boundary fence was erected at Borstal around the site of the new prison, and this work--but this alone--was performed by free labour, the very timber for the fence having been prepared in the prison at Chatham, four miles distant, which served as general centre and headquarters for the Borstal as well as the Chattenden prison. Parties of selected convicts were despatched daily to Borstal, under escort, of course, but without chains, and travelled back and forth in open vans. Temporary huts were put up for cooking, storage and the accommodation of the guard, and within sixteen weeks the prison buildings were so far advanced that forty cells were ready for occupation by prisoners, and the establishment was then regularly opened as a prison. During this sixteen weeks there had been no accidents, no escapes, no misconduct. The convicts employed in this really "intermediate stage," having a larger amount of license and liberty than Sir Walter Crofton had ever dreamed of giving a prisoner, had behaved in the most exemplary manner. Within a year afterward, when the number of convicts had gradually increased to more than two hundred, all necessary buildings had been put up to accommodate a total population of five hundred prisoners.