Below the large hall, approached by the external staircase, is the hold, or gaol, into which all prisoners were thrust indiscriminately, and chained to a beam which was placed in the centre of it.   On the same floor were the gaolers' apartments.

King Henry III gave the burgesses of Gt. Yarmouth the power to elect four bailiffs, also granted them the right to keep a gaol for prisoners and malefactors, and a building, probably erected early in the thirteenth century, was utilized by the town for this purpose.

Before King John's charter, the Provost had administered justice at the north end of the town, at a place known as the King's Conge, but after the grant of that charter, the same building used as a gaol was used also as the Court of Justice, and later as the meeting-place of the Corporation.   This building, which was the centre of the civic life of the town, and where the town's customs or tolls were collected, was known as the Tollhouse.

This quaint old building was in Gaol or Middlegate Street, formerly the chief street of the town. Its chief feature is an open external staircase, leading up to the first floor, where the great hall is situated.

It was here that justice was administered during the Free Fair in a unique form, the bailiffs sent by the Barons of the Cinque Ports sitting side by side with the bailiffs of the town; the former, by the chartered rights of the town, having the power of life and death, a power not possessed by them in their own towns.   This combination resulted in continual quarrels and struggles, the town bailiffs very much resenting the interference of the visiting bailiffs; and, Swinden says:

"   ...occasioned such horrid discords, war and confusion, as the like perhaps never happened for so long a time between any two places in the British Dominions, the whole nation being sometime alarmed at their debates, riots, and depredations on each other."

      These disturbances continued until at last, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, matters were finally settled to the satisfaction of each party.