For over 800 years Newgate was the grimy axle around which British society slowly twisted. This is where such legendary outlaws as Robin Hood & Captain Kidd met their fates, where the rapier-wielding playwrights Ben Jonson & Christopher Marlowe sharpened their quills, & where flamboyant highwaymen like Claude Duval & James Maclaine made legions of women swoon. While London`s theatres came & went, the gaol endured as Londons unofficial stage. From the Peasants Revolt to the Great Fire, it was at Newgate that England`s greatest dramas unfolded. By piecing together the lives of forgotten figures as well as re-examining the prison`s links with more famous individuals, from Dick Whittington to Charles Dickens, this thrilling history goes in search of a ghostly place, erased by time, which has inspired more poems & plays, paintings & novels, than any other structure in British history.