Newgate was refronted and refaced in 1638 in the manner already described.[63] No further change or improvement was made in the building until a total re-edification became inevitable, after the great fire in 1666. Of the exact effect of that conflagration upon the prison gate-house I can discover no authentic records. Knight, in his ‘London,’ gives a woodcut of the burning of Newgate, designed by Fussel, which many dismissed as imaginative rather than historically accurate. The gate as represented is altogether larger than it could possibly have been, and the aspect of the structure is very much what a nineteenth century artist would conceive a mediæval prison would be. According to a writer in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ for April, 1764, Newgate was only damaged, not destroyed, in the great fire. He goes on to speak of the “present beautiful structure,” an edifice so inadequate for prison purposes, it may be remarked that it had already been condemned at this date, and schemes for its entire reconstruction propounded. This beautiful structure as represented in the woodcut is thus described by the above-mentioned writer:-- “The west side is adorned with three ranges of Tuscan pilasters with their entablatures, and in the inter columniations are four niches, in one of which is a figure representing Liberty; the word ‘libertas’ is inscribed on her cap, and at her feet lies a cat in allusion to Sir Richard Whittington, a benefactor to the prison, who is said to have made the first step to his advancement and good fortune by a cat. The inside of the gate is also adorned with a range of pilasters, with their entablatures, and in their niches [Illustration]