Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(UK Und.) Dartmoor prison in west Devon.

1925		E. Jervis 25 Years in Six Prisons 22: Mr. Basil Thompson and me was at the Moor together!
1933		J. Spenser Limey 112: Red told me something of what he had been doing since he left ‘the Moor’.
1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 73: Don’t go to the ‘Moor’, it’s a lousy can.
1956		B. Behan Quare Fellow (1960) Act II: Two laggings I done! At Parkhurst and on the Moor.
1961		(con. 1920s) J. Sparks Burglar to the Nobility 72: You’ll have to get yourself sent to the Moor, boy, and develop your muscles on the rock-pile a bit.
1977		G.F. Newman A Prisoner’s Tale 43: I thought you was on the ‘Moor.’.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 154: As far as anyone knows he got moved that night down to the block and then on to the Moor.