Peterhead Prison Museum

📌 Peterhead, Aberdeenshire
★★★

HMP Peterhead was Scotland’s only convict prison, where inmates were sent for hard labour from 1888. In 2013 it was replaced by the neighbouring HMP Grampian – but the old site re-opened for tourists in 2016, giving a chance to find out more about life inside what was once claimed to be Scotland’s toughest jail, and finally gifting the large town of Peterhead with its first significant tourist attraction. The tour is a self-guided audioguide affair, and is a very different experience to that which is offered at the older Inveraray Jail in Argyll. Cell blocks are mostly preserved in their modern (i.e. 2013) state, and a great number of “behind the scenes” areas can be visited, including the kitchens, laundary, showers, hospital, officers’ rooms and exercise yards. The main cell block has been decorated with objects thrown onto the wire netting between floors, recreating a major riot in 1987. Finally, a large hangar houses a Lifeboat Museum as an unexpected bonus; Peterhead has an important seagoing heritage.