Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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New Bridewell was a prison built c. 1617 next to Clerkenwell Bridewell, which was a prison located in Clerkenwell http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/3395.php named ‘Bridewell’ after the Bridewell Palace, which during the 16th century had become one of the City of London’s most important prisons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerkenwell_Bridewell
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Bridewell
From The Book of Days (1869)
Adjoining to St. Bride’s Churchyard, Fleet-street, is an ancient well dedicated to the saint, and commonly called Bride’s Well. A palace erected near by took the name of Bridewell. This being given by Edward VI to the city of London as a workhouse for the poor and a house of correction, the name became associated in the popular mind with houses having the same purpose in view. Hence it has arisen that the pure and innocent Bridget—the first of Irish nuns—is now inextricably connected in our ordinary national parlance with a class of beings of the most opposite description.