17/06/2026
A breakthrough in our research of The Cage - a newly re-discovered document which we were invited to present to the St Osyth Historic Society last week.
Below is a snippet from the 1841 census record for St Osyth, where the enumerator left an annotation indicating multiple people confined to the Cage of St Osyth on the night of 6th June, 1841 . This was the first census where the actual names, ages, gender and occupation of each person were listed. There were rarely records kept for those confined in Cages, so we're incredibly lucky to have re-discovered this document.
This record is incredibly useful in many ways - it tells us that the cage was still being used well into the 19th century, that it could hold multiple people at a time, and that people as young as 15 could be held there. It also allows us to pinpoint the location of The Cage to 14 Colchester Road - thanks to the relatively sequential nature of the census data, we've been able to cross reference names in the vicinity of those listed in the census with land ownership records for sorrounding properties.
You can read more about this amazing find and more research we've uncovered:
https://thecage.co.uk/pages/history-of-the-cage
