Church bells tolled as staff left Britain's oldest jail for the last time.
And after the volunteer band from Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton sounded the Last Post, staff at Shepton Mallet prison hugged and shed tears for what Clive Vincent, the longest serving officer, with 27 years at the jail, called: "the loss of a family".
Grim as its walls appear it was the good things that went on inside that led the Bishop of Bath and Wells the Rt Rev Peter Price to speak of the: "profound sense of dislocation" that the decision to close HMP Cornhill brought to staff and inmates alike.
The Bishop delivered the sermon in the chapel yesterday, as staff gathered for the last day in the prison's 403-year history.
The inmates had already moved to other jails.
Of the 118 staff, 20 will move to Earlstoke prison in Wiltshire, more than 70 are moving to other jails, and 30 have taken voluntary redundancy.
Prison governor Andy Rogers, who is also governor of Earlstoke, will continue in his role in Wiltshire, and undertake other special responsibilities within the national prison service.
Bishop Peter told staff: "As a regular visitor here I want to affirm the words of HM inspector of Prisons in the 2010 report: 'a settled population', 'a safe place', 'positive staff-prisoner relationships', a 'strong focus on addressing the serious risks posed by the population'. The report spoke of a 'small scale niche prison with a settled population'. It is hardly surprising then, that the decision to close made in January this year had a deeply unsettling effect.
"Prison and imprisonment, regrettably, has an appropriate place in our society. Key to the reduction of the prison population however, are the values articulated in the 2010 report, the creation of settled, safe, positive relationships. If the projected prison closures, and the re-distribution of staff and inmates to other institutions do not have these priorities at their centre, then the risk is that these actions will be seen as simply bureaucratic, administrative cost cutting exercises."
Francis Disney, aged 82, former prison officer and local historian told of the jail's grim past including the execution of 18 American servicemen when it was a US military jail in the Second World War.
Outside the gates Danielle White, aged 16, whose father, Robert, had been a prison officer and later fire advisor at the jail, had been given time out of Whitstone school.
"It was a big part of my dad's life for the last 16 years, this is such a big change," she said.
Sarah Whitmarsh, aged 36, also standing in the cold said: "It is sad, it is part of the town's history and I am here to show my appreciation."
Philip Beckinsale shed a tear as he left.
Governor Rogers said: "I am obviously saddened because a lot of staff have a history of working on the site and it has been part of the community since 1610, but I understand that things move on.
"There are better places for offenders to be relocated and that are more economic."
