lockup house

plural lockup houses

1. historicalA small house where people are kept in temporary custody after arrest, especially where debtors are held before transfer to a debtors' prison.First known use 18th c.

   He kept a lock-up house in Great Earle Street, Soho, and, although by profession a tailor, he had fitted it up most elegantly as a tavern.

   1808–10, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, p. 143

2. colloquialhistoricalobsoleteA lodging house where men are kept and forced to enlist in the army or navy.First known use 18th c.