The ground between the boundary wall and the quadrangles was not built upon, but was studded over with the boxes of the sentries, who, with muskets loaded with ball cartridge, day and night patrolled the vacant area, ready to fire on any prisoner attempting to escape across it who did not obey the order to halt. Beyond the boundary wall of the prison were situated east and west the military barracks. These comprised at each end three large caserns, similar to those in the prison, built to enclose, with the guard house, the barrack square. The casern facing the guard house was the officers’ quarters, and was partitioned off into twenty-three separate officers’ rooms, a mess-room, kitchen, and other offices. Those at either side accommodated the private soldiers; they were divided into ten separate rooms, each with sleeping-berths for sixty men. There were two smaller buildings for the non-commissioned officers, a large canteen, sutling-house, and various offices. The whole of these buildings, with the barrack yards, were enclosed by strong stockade fencing. Outside this fence there was, in the space allotted to the accommodation of the troops, east and west of the prison, a detached house for the field officers, two smaller houses for the staff sergeants, the powder magazine, a fire-engine house, a range of stabling, with stalls for thirty-five horses, {28a} rooms for the batmen, a schoolroom, and various other necessary offices and sheds. The Military Hospital occupied the north-west corner of the forty-two acres; it served for the whole of the troops in both barracks, and was complete in itself. It was enclosed within a separate stockade fence. On the south side of the area, between the boundary wall and the Peterborough Road, were the houses of the barrack master, and of the agent (or superintendent). These are still standing, the former having been purchased, when the prison and barracks were demolished and the site and materials sold, by Captain Kelly (Brevet Major, 1854), the last Brigade-Major. This officer had, in 1814, married the daughter of Mr. Vise, a surgeon practising in Stilton, {28b} and, wishing to settle in the neighbourhood, he purchased the first of the lots into which the freehold was divided, and in which was situated the barrack master’s house, described in the catalogue as “a comfortable house in the cottage stile,” “built of substantial fir carcase-framing and rough weather-boarding on brick footings, and covered with pantiles.”