DOING TIME IN INVERARAY

Hilary McNally goes behind bars at Inveraray Jail and discovers what life was like in a 19th Century Scottish prison.

Back in the 1800s Inveraray Jail was a place to be feared and avoided if at all possible. Cold, damp and dangerously overcrowded it was home to a volatile mix of convicted criminals, impressionable youngsters, the mentally ill and those still awaiting trial.

Nowadays people are literally queuing up to get inside thanks to its transformation as one of Scotland's most popular and fascinating visitor attractions.

A winner of the European Museum of the Year Award, a Scottish Tourism Oscar and an Interpret Britain Award, Inveraray Jail gives visitors the chance to step back in time to the days when convicts were branded with hot irons, tortured and executed and children could be locked up in freezing cells for weeks for the heinous crime of stealing a turnip!

A glimpse of life in this 19th century prison begins with an exhibition looking at crime and punishment through the ages and includes some horrific instruments of torture and summary justice.

Some of the more gruesome practices include nailing convicts by the ear to a post, forcing a hot iron through a prisoner's tongue and extracting confessions by way of thumbscrews or the stomach-turningly awful "boots."

These involved binding wooden boards around a prisoners legs and then driving a wedge between the boards resulting in crushed bones, torn flesh and permanent disablement not to mention an appalling degree of pain.

Compared to these routine punishments the introduction of proper prisons may have seemed like a significant advance but a trip to the prison cells of 1820 provide sufficient evidence that life was far from easy for prisoners of the time.

Built with poor heating and ventilation and the most rudimentary sanitation the prison was also too small for its population. With only eight small cells and often more than 20 prisoners, men, women and children were locked in together, the hardened criminal alongside the ill and insane and those jailed for petty offences.

Now visitors can join these prisoners of old behind bars and try out the cells and find out more about the people who actually spent time there.

Downstairs in the jail, models of real 19th century prisoners, including a mother whose child was born in prison and two young children convicted of petty theft, are featured in a special exhibition.

Across the courtyard is the new prison built in 1848 and considered at the time a model jail because of its improved conditions. With proper heating, a washroom and single cells for prisoners it was far less harsh than the old jail. A wander through the cells, however, will show it was still a long way from being a pleasant experience for those incarcerated here.

One of the cells is devoted to hard labour and features some of the deliberately exhausting and pointless work dreamed up by the authorities to make life uncomfortable for convicts including treadmills and cannonball drill.

Visitors can also have a go at the crank wheel which prisoners had to turn 14,000 times a day. In another cell is a whipping table specially designed to deter young male criminals from stepping outside the law again while another cell highlights the use of transportation as a punishment.

Visitors can also read the prison log recording names, ages, crimes and sentences, try out a hammock used by prisoners and speak to staff in period costume acting out the roles of warder, matron and convict.

The new prison also offers an insight into modern day prison life with the Barlinnie Cell, a recreation of a cell in one of Scotland's most notorious prisons.

Also worth a visit at Inveraray Jail is the courthouse between the old and new prisons. Built between 1816 and 1820 the last circuit court case to be heard here was in the 1930s. Today the courtroom is set out as it would have been when the Circuit Court was in session complete with 15 strong jury, judge, lawyers, witnesses and of course, the accused.

Visitors can take a seat on the public benches and listen to extracts from a number of cases once tried in the court.

Inveraray Jail is open every day except Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Opening times are 10am to 5pm (last admission 4pm) between November and March and from 9.30am to 6pm (last admission 5pm) between April and October. For more information contact the jail on 01499 302381.


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