HMP Peterhead was a prison in

Peterhead Peterhead (; gd, Ceann Phàdraig, sco, Peterheid ) is a town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is Aberdeenshire's biggest settlement (the city of Aberdeen itself not being a part of the district), with a population of 18,537 at the 2011 Census. ...

Aberdeenshire Aberdeenshire ( sco, Aiberdeenshire; gd, Siorrachd Obar Dheathain) is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland#council areas of Scotland, council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the County of Aberdeen which has substantially differe ...

, Scotland, operating from 1888 to 2013. Since June 2016, the former grounds operate as the Peterhead Prison Museum.

History

Peterhead Convict Prison was built around 1888. It was designed to hold 208 prisoners and to be Scotland's only

convict A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as "prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former convict ...

prison,Scraton, P., Sim, J. & Skidmore, P. (1991) ''Prisons Under Protest'', Buckingham: Open University Press i.e. for prisoners sentenced to ‘ hard labour’. Occupancy averaged at around 350 however, until peaking at 455 in 1911. Additional buildings were completed in 1909, 1960 and 1962, bringing capacity up to 362. According to the

Scottish Prison Service The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) is an executive agency of the Scottish Government tasked with managing prisons and Young Offender Institutions. The Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, currently Teresa Medhurst, is responsible fo ...

, the prison could, in 2012, accommodate up to 142 prisoners. It closed in 2013, to be replaced by the new

HMP Grampian HMP & YOI Grampian is a high security prison in Peterhead Peterhead (; gd, Ceann Phàdraig, sco, Peterheid ) is a town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is Aberdeenshire's biggest settlement (the city of Aberdeen itself not being a part of ...

, the first prison in Scotland to jointly house youths, men and women. The first inmates transferred on to site on 2 March 2014 having been temporarily housed at other sites and connected to family with virtual visits by videolink. Until the opening of Peterhead Convict Prison, Scots convicts were transported to England to serve their sentences. The first convicts were received in August 1888. Peterhead supplied the labour force to work in Stirlinghill Quarry and in the Admiralty Yard attached to the prison. These convicts supported the work of a civilian labour force employed by the Admiralty to construct the Harbour of Refuge breakwater. The Admiralty project was unique in Scotland as it was served by the only state-owned passenger-carrying railway in its day.

Riot

On 28 September 1987, a riot in the prison's D wing resulted in prisoners taking over the building and taking a prison officer, 56-year-old Jackie Stuart, hostage. The rioters were serving life in prison for violent crimes. It was thought that they had nothing to lose and would not hesitate to make good on their threats to kill their

hostage A hostage is a person seized by an abductor in order to compel another party, one which places a high value on the liberty, well-being and safety of the person seized, such as a relative, employer, law enforcement or government to act, or ref ...

, whom they had taken up to the rafters. When negotiations broke down, the then-Home Secretary,

Douglas Hurd Douglas Richard Hurd, Baron Hurd of Westwell, (born 8 March 1930) is a British Conservative Party politician who served in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major from 1979 to 1995. A career diplomat and political secretary to P ...

, dispatched the SAS to bring the riot to an end on 3 October. The operation was successful. The hostage was released unharmed and order in the prison was restored.

Facilities

Peterhead Prison had a history of poor conditions for prisoners, being referred to as "Scotland's gulag, a prison of no hope." A 2005 inspection reported that electricity had only just been made available in all the cells and

slopping out Slopping out is the manual emptying of human waste when prison cells are unlocked in the morning. Inmates without a flush toilet in the cell have to use other means (formerly a chamber pot, then a bucket, now often a chemical toilet) while locked ...

continued at the prison. HMP Peterhead was a specialist centre for sex offenders. Talks on replacing the prison with a new one began in 2006. They were revived in November 2006. Demolition of part of the prison began on 13 February 2012, with the opening of the new HMP Grampian planned for winter 2013/14. The prison closed on 6 December 2013. The new facility can hold about 500 male and female prisoners – both adults and young offenders – from the Northern Community Justice Authority catchment area. Redcon_1

In 2016, Peterhead Prison was used as a filming location for the 2018 British zombie action film ''

Redcon-1 ''Redcon-1'' (also known as ''Redcon-1 - Army of the Dead'') is a 2018 British action horror film, starring Katarina Waters, Mark Strange, and Carlos Gallardo. The film was produced by Gallardo and Kevin Eastman. Working titles for the film incl ...

''.

Museum

The building now serves as the Peterhead Prison Museum which provides an Audio Guided Tour of cells and courtrooms.

References

External links

Peterhead Prison MuseumPeterhead Prison 'as bad as ever' – bbc.co.ukH.M. PETERHEAD PRISON CONDITIONS UNDER FIRE
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hmp Peterhead Prisons in Peterhead

1888 establishments in Scotland Museums in Aberdeenshire Prison museums in the United Kingdom