# Brits: Tell me about the "spike" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 9, 2011, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-tell-me-about-the-spike/570763 "2011-02-09T15:14:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2011, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-tell-me-about-the-spike/570763/1 "2011-02-09T15:14:31Z")
[This 1931 essay](http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part1) or article by George Orwell recounts a night he spent in a “spike,” which apparently is a kind of overnight homeless shelter, but a very peculiar kind, such as I’ve never heard of in the U.S. – everybody is locked in at night, and guests are allowed to have no money to their name at all – “You’d get seven days for going into the spike with eightpence!” Does this kind of shelter still exist in Britain? How did it get started? ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2011, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-tell-me-about-the-spike/570763/2 "2011-02-09T15:21:34Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [This 1931 essay](http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part1) or article by George Orwell recounts a night he spent in a “spike,” which apparently is a kind of overnight homeless shelter, but a very peculiar kind, such as I’ve never heard of in the U.S. – everybody is locked in at night, and guests are allowed to have no money to their name at all – “You’d get seven days for going into the spike with eightpence!” Does this kind of shelter still exist in Britain? How did it get started? [The Spike](http://www.charlotteville.co.uk/thespike.htm) was the tramp wing of the old workhouses. Never heard the term until now. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2011, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-tell-me-about-the-spike/570763/3 "2011-02-09T15:24:28Z")
Workhouses were nationally abolished in 1930, though some continued under local authority control until 1948. Oddly enough, we “Brits” also have running water, electricity, don’t cram strangers into wicker effigies and burn them, and have largely given up painting ourselves blue and slaughtering Romans. Except for the Scousers, that is. ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2011, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-tell-me-about-the-spike/570763/4 "2011-02-09T15:38:27Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Workhouses were nationally abolished in 1930, though some continued under local authority control until 1948. > > Oddly enough, we “Brits” also have running water, electricity, don’t cram strangers into wicker effigies and burn them, and have largely given up painting ourselves blue and slaughtering Romans. Except for the Scousers, that is. Oi! I resemble that remark. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2011, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-tell-me-about-the-spike/570763/5 "2011-02-09T16:54:01Z")
Never heard of it! Guess I should read more 1930s Orwell! ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2011, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-tell-me-about-the-spike/570763/6 "2011-02-09T17:48:53Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > [The Spike](http://www.charlotteville.co.uk/thespike.htm) was the tramp wing of the old workhouses. > > Never heard the term until now. Tramp wing? Workhouse? ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2011, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-tell-me-about-the-spike/570763/7 "2011-02-09T18:10:52Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > Tramp wing? > > Workhouse? [Tramp](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramp) [Wing (definition #10)](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wing) [Workhouse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workhouse) ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-tell-me-about-the-spike/570763/8 "2011-02-09T18:20:31Z")
A workhouse is a building in which people were put to work and provided accomodation, normally unpleasant but mostly pointless work and accomodation with curfews, seperation of families, and so forth. People would be provided with food and would have little choice in the matter and little chance of escape. This was, I believe, established under the New Poor Law. A tramp is a homeless person, once upon a time something which required excessive amounts of walking, or tramping. A wing is a part of a building, traditionally an auxiliary part of a building adjacent to the main part of the building, often distinguished by different size, architectural style, orientation, or time of construction. A tramp wing in an old workhouse is a wing for tramps in a workhouse. ---
**Author:** ![A.Gwilliam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea5d25/32.png) [@A.Gwilliam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.Gwilliam)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2011, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-tell-me-about-the-spike/570763/9 "2011-02-09T18:34:07Z")
> [@blindboyard](#): > > A workhouse is a building in which people were put to work and provided accomodation, normally unpleasant but mostly pointless work and accomodation with curfews, seperation of families, and so forth. People would be provided with food and would have little choice in the matter and little chance of escape. This was, I believe, established under the New Poor Law. Which by the 1930s was around a hundred years’ old! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2011, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-tell-me-about-the-spike/570763/10 "2011-02-09T21:38:40Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Oddly enough, we “Brits” also have running water, electricity, don’t cram strangers into wicker effigies and burn them, and have largely given up painting ourselves blue and slaughtering Romans. Except for the Scousers, that is. So you’d have us _believe_. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2011, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-tell-me-about-the-spike/570763/11 "2011-02-09T22:02:08Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Oddly enough, we “Brits” don’t cram strangers into wicker effigies and burn them. What about that business with Lord Summerisle? ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2011, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-tell-me-about-the-spike/570763/12 "2011-02-09T22:07:42Z")
The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 was an attempt to modernise the Poor Law of 1601, which had become hopelessly out of date for an industrialised society. Outdoor relief (or welfare payments in modern terms) was to be restricted to the smallest number of people possible. The workhouse [sometimes called the union in contemporary literature, because parishes united to finance one] was to be the only form of aid to the destitute, if possible, and its conditions were deliberately made unattractive to ensure that it was a last resort rather than a first resort. The casual ward admitted itinerants, for a single night only to discourage them from stopping there permanently, and a vagrant could not return there before a certain period had elapsed, which encouraged him to keep on the move, supposedly looking for work. Luke Fildes’s painting, _Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward_ [http://www.netnicholls.com/neh2001/pages/aspects5/54frame.htm](http://www.netnicholls.com/neh2001/pages/aspects5/54frame.htm) depicts such a scene. The gradual evolution of the welfare state abolished the workhouse, as such, in 1930, though frequently the institution just took on another name and continued to operate much as before, until the National Assistance Act 1948 ended the remnants of the old Poor Law. Even then the mental hospital or old people’s home frequently occupied the old workhouse building, in this town it did until the 1980s. ---
**Author:** ![Ms\_Boods](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Ms\_Boods](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Boods)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2011, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-tell-me-about-the-spike/570763/13 "2011-02-09T23:14:12Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Oddly enough, we “Brits” also have running water, electricity, don’t cram strangers into wicker effigies and burn them, and have largely given up painting ourselves blue and slaughtering Romans. This effectively describes a run-of-the-mill holiday with my partner when I’m over his way near Portsmouth. ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2011, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-tell-me-about-the-spike/570763/14 "2011-02-09T23:14:35Z")
By the end of the Victorian era the workhouse had lost most of its original “punish the work-shy” function, and instead was used as a combination of old-peoples’ home, free (but basic) infirmary and a place where unmarried mothers could give birth to their babies. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2011, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-tell-me-about-the-spike/570763/15 "2011-02-10T01:47:25Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton;13446929which apparently is a kind of overnight homeless shelter, but a very peculiar kind, such as I’ve never heard of in the U.S. – everybody is locked in at night,[/QUOTE] That’s true of many current homeless shelters – people are admitted up to the closing time, then everyone is locked in for the night, and then in the morning they have to leave. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2011, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-tell-me-about-the-spike/570763/16 "2011-02-10T18:41:26Z")
> [@norinew](#): > > So you’d have us _believe_. > 😃 For gods sake I killed half a dozen Romans on one occasion and people never let me forget it. And the woad was for a skin condition. Stop picking on me. ---
**Author:** ![A.Gwilliam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea5d25/32.png) [@A.Gwilliam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.Gwilliam)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2011, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-tell-me-about-the-spike/570763/17 "2011-02-10T19:21:19Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > And the woad was for a skin condition. You woad say that! :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Agnostic\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@Agnostic\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agnostic_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2011, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brits-tell-me-about-the-spike/570763/18 "2011-02-11T04:27:52Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > That’s true of many current homeless shelters – people are admitted up to the closing time, then everyone is locked in for the night, and then in the morning they have to leave. It is also common policy in several shelters that all the personal belongings of the clients have to be secured by the staff. Can’t say I disagree entirely since it cuts down on theft or fights over items, but some are ridiculous, not allowing any items such as books or magazines.