It was nicknamed 'the hate factory', home to some of the most notorious criminals in the land, but people are now flocking to see inside the north east's latest tourist attraction, HM Convict Prison, Peterhead.
More than 5,000 have come from all over the country to visit the prison museum since it opened on June 7, with its quality audio tour devised by the same company that supplied the legendary Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco Bay. But numbers are expected to increase further from 1,000 a week , as it captures the public imagination.
Built in the Victorian era an opened in 1888 to hold 208 prisoners, but at its peak, it was home to 455 in the 1980s when it made headlines.
Prisoners, protesting at their living conditions, assaulted prison guards and set fire to A wing in 1986. The following year there was a riot, two prison guards were taken hostage. One, Jackie Stuart, was beaten, stripped, chained, and led across the 90ft high rooftop of the jail's D block during the riot.
When negotiations broke down after five days, Cobra, the Thatcher government's crisis management group, headed by Douglas Hurd, then home secretary, dispatched the SAS.
In a 10-minute operation, six hooded SAS soldiers entered the jail through a skylight hurling "flash-bangs" and gas grenades, freeing Mr Stuart, and capturing the hostage-takers.
Mr Stuart, now 87, is one of the volunteer guides helping at the museum which tells the story of the prison. He was a member of a small group of former prison officers to advise on the development of the museum. Former policeman Alex Geddes who manages it , said "Jackie has been here every weekend since we opened, speaking to visitors. He is a great inspiration to everyone here."
There is a model SAS officer dressed in the "Black Kit" worn during the rescue of Mr Stuart in 1987.
In its later years it held some of Scotland’s most notorious criminals, including serial killers, rapists and paedophiles such as Robert Black and Peter Tobin, as well as 'limbs in the loch' murderer William Beggs and Glasgow gangster Arthur Thompson.
But the museum doesn’t highlight any individual inmate. Rather it tells the story of the conditions the prison staff had to endure work in down the years till it closed in it closed in 2013, to be replaced by HMP Grampian, also at Peterhead.
The cells measured just 5ft by 7ft when the prison opened, and visitors can see one hung with a hammock-style bed. The cells were later extended by knocking though walls making two into one with bunk beds.
New buildings were added in 1909, 1960 and 1962 to cope with the pressure of the growing prison population.
There is the mould-laden 'silent room', where prisoners would be sent for solitary confinement, living off bread and water rations. Meanwhile one cell depicts the time of the “dirty protest” in the 1970s and 80s when prisoners smeared their excrement across the walls. A local film production company helped fund a substitute substance to replicate this particular act of grievance.
Mr Geddes is now in charge of the the building which was sold by Scottish Prison Service to local engineering group Score. Its whose Admiralty Gateway development also includes the Peterhead RNLI Lifeboat exhibition and the Score training centre.
Mr Geddes said he and his team were encouraged by the public response. "We are open seven days a week from 10am till 6pm, but the last entry time is 4.30 to allow time to get round. We have had well in excess of 5,000 visitors and our first today have come all the way from Aboyne. But we have also had them from Sussex, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Elgin and from many other locations and we have a coach load coming across from Stornoway next month. "
He said there had also been international interest with visitors arriving from the U.S.A, Australia. Dubai and Belgium.
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