Stirling Old Town Jail: A Visitor’s Guide to Scotland’s Victorian Prison (1847-1888)

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There’s something about visiting old Victorian prisons that sends a tingle up (or is it down) my spine, and I can safely say that my visit to Stirling Old Town Jail was no exception.

Unlike other historic jails open to the public, Stirling Old Town Jail immerses you deep into an era of harsh punishments, failed reforms, and chilling inmate tales from the off. 

I’d heard about their famous performance tours, and without a shadow of a doubt, this is what has put Stirling Old Town Jail at the top of my must visit Victorian prison list here in the UK.

But what’s it actually like inside Stirling’s notorious Victorian prison? Is it worth squeezing into your packed Scotland itinerary? 

What dark secrets are hidden behind those thick stone walls, and is it worthy of its Travellers’ Choice Award on TripAdvisor?

Here’s everything you need to know based on my visit.

Table of Contents

• Why Was Stirling Old Town Jail Built in 1847?
  • Overcrowding in Stirling Tolbooth Prison
  • Living Conditions
• The Architecture of Stirling Old Town Jail 
  • The Seperate System 
  • The Panopticon 
  • Stirling Old Town Jail Through Time 
• Notable Prisoners of Stirling Old Town Jail 
  • Mother Agnes Smith: Imprisoned 1847
  • Prisoner #22, James Nicol – Imprisoned August 1876
  • Suffragette Ethel Moorhead: Imprisoned September 1912
• Stirling Old Town Jail Tour: What To Expect
  • The Interactive Character-Led Tour Experience
  • Key Areas You’ll Visit 
  • The Cells 
  • The Exercise Yard
• Life Inside Stirling’s Old Town Jail
  • Upon Arrival: Prisoner Admissions
  • Daily routine of prisoners
  • Meal Times
• Is Stirling Old Town Jail Worth It? My Personal Experience
  • Let’s Get You There: Booking Options
  • Parking Details 
  • Stirling Old Town Jail Escape Rooms
  • Stirling Old Town Jail Shop
• Planning on Visiting Stirling? Pin This post For Later

Why Was Stirling Old Town Jail Built in 1847?

It was the condemnation of Stirling’s Tolhouse prison in 1841 – labelled as ‘the worst prison in Britain’ – that was the catalyst for building what, at the time, was to become Stirling’s New County Jail, the jail we now refer to as Stirling’s Old Town Jail. 

It was here in 1841, after a visit by Scotland’s first Inspector of Prisons, Birmingham-born Frederick Hill, that conditions in the Tolbooth were seen first hand. 

Overcrowding in Stirling Tolbooth Prison

Disease-ridden, damp and overcrowded cells plagued the town’s Tolbooth, with up to 25 prisoners crammed into tiny cells designed for one, perhaps two inmates at most. 

Such was the lack of space in the Tolbooth that at times, both convicted and non convicted prisoners were locked up in the same cell. 

In fact, the local newspaper, the Stirling Observer, in an article above one on American Cheese(!), ran a short piece on the conditions at the Tolbooth after visiting in 1844, highlighting how bad it was: 

‘ It was painful to see the crowds, for they were literally crowds, which had been crammed into one room – there being upwards of twenty women besides two children, in one room – while other rooms contained ten to fifteen men…’

Stirling Observer: 4 April 1844

Despite opposition in places, and quite loudly from the Stirling Observer, as we’ll see later, it became glaringly obvious that a new jail was needed in Stirling. 

Local reporters had recently heard of fourteen male prisoners being transferred to Edinburgh ‘for want of sufficient accommodation in our [Stirling] jail’.

Living Conditions

Right up until 1828 inmates were left to starve, denied even basic sustenance during their confinement, instead being left to beg for food through the bars on their cells. 

Following his visit, Scotland’s Inspector of Prisons, Frederick Hill, immediately began pressuring Stirling’s County Prison Board to take action and build a new County Jail for the condemned of Stirling. 

His vision went beyond simply building another prison and inspired by the reforms of Elizabeth Fry, Hill recommended a new facility, one that would ‘reform and educate’ rather than merely contain. 

The Architecture of Stirling Old Town Jail

Whether or not you were opposed to the New Jail in Stirling, work set about a pace locating a suitable building site and allocating funds for the New Jail, the jail we now know as Stirling’s Old Town Jail. 

Suitable land was purchased in what is now St John Street in Stirling for £1200 and £5000 was put forward by the County Prison Board in April of 1841 in the hopes that this would be sufficient for completing the jail. 

Unfortunately, this covered just over half of the expense and in 1844, a further £4000 was requested, and a reluctant Prison Board finally agreed to hand the funds over. 

By July 1845, the building of the ground floor was going on ‘with such extraordinary activity and energy’. 

Two months later, the Stirling Observer was happy to report that 16 cells, measuring 3ft x 2ft ( a tiny 0.91m x 0.61m) were now fully completed in the basement. 

The New Jail opened its doors to inmates on 11^th November 1847 and was built in the now infamous – and at the time somewhat controversial – style of the Separate System. 

The jail’s first inmates walked over the road to the New Jail from the Tolbooth prison at 4am that November morning and the rest as they say, is history.

The Seperate System

Designed by architect Thomas Brown, Stirling Old Town Jail was built to reflect the requirements of the Separate System – not to be confused with the Silent System, which forbade prisoners from speaking, even when together in dining halls or working.

The Separate System, introduced into the UK by John Howard, was embraced at Stirling Old Town Jail, with William Brebner – the Governor of Glasgow’s Bridewell Prison – playing a key role in its implementation. 

Brebner’s reforms were based on the belief that isolation and solitary confinement would encourage inmates to reflect on their crimes, ultimately leading to their moral and spiritual reform.

As part of this adapted approach to the system, prisoners at Stirling were taught basic literacy, and prison staff trained them in trades that could be useful upon their release. 

Within its first 10 years of use, the Separate System had reduced reoffending rates in Stirling’s prisoners by nearly 47%.

So much so that the Inspector of Prisons, Frederick Hill, even removed the notorious prison treadmill or treadwheel from some Scottish prisons. 

But as with a lot of things successful, greed plays a hand sooner or later and the success story of Stirling Old Town Jail soon begins to crumble. 

With the number of men increasing in each cell, sometimes up to as many as four, discipline turned once again to harsher punishments and the time for education and contemplation had passed. 

The Panopticon

Central to the Separate System was the architecture behind the prison itself, something that can be seen first hand during your visit to Stirling Old Town Jail. 

A central tower or ‘panopticon’ was built, and in the example at Stirling, east and west wings of the prison radiate from this central tower. 

From this tower the Governor could keep a look out across ‘his’ prison and the chaplin could conduct sermons to the inmates without them even leaving their cells.  

The sketch above comes from Brown’s architectural drawings and is from the covers of the guidebook that you can buy when visiting Stirling Old Town Jail. 

Look closely and you can see the panopticon in the centre, housed along with the guard room. The east and west wings are clearly visible from the central ‘all seeing eye’ on the first floor.

The panopticon meant that all cells within Stirling were visible, both day and night.

Look closer still and you can see that Brown intended the prison to be built over five floors with 52 cells – 51 cells if you read the guide book. 

Stirling’s Old Town Jail was the last reform prison to be built in Scotland and the panopticon can be seen as you travel between the floors in the lift (elevator). 

Stirling Old Town Jail Through Time

It doesn’t take a genius to realise that Stirling Old Town jail stopped being a working prison and at some point in its history turned into a tourist attraction.

The doors of Stirling Old Town Jail closed in 1888 and the site was taken over by the Crown and eventually became Scotland’s only military detention barracks.

It remained such until 1935 when this too closed its doors and Stirling prison was abandoned and left to deteriorate. 

After having a brief life as a sweetie factory in 1950s and 60s under the management of Stirling Confectionary Company, the jail finally succumbed to years of neglect and was ‘bagged’ in plastic sheeting in an attempt to dry the building out. 

That was in 1992.

Fast forward four years and the first version of Stirling’s Old Town Jail had a brief period of attracting visitors until this too closed its doors in 2012. 

The prison that you wander around today opened its doors in 2015 and is now, alongside Stirling Castle, one of the most popular attractions to visit in Stirling. 

Notable Prisoners of Stirling Old Town Jail

Stirling Old Town Jail has seen some characters in its day, although not too many of the famous kind. 

In a prison report for Stirling dated 9 May 1849,  it was noted that there were 73 male and 26 female prisoners held at the jail (one more than the previous year) and that being confined in their cells seems to be having a positive effect not only on their cleanliness but also on their temperament.   

Some of the prisoners in the jail (and included throughout the guide book) include the following: 

Mother Agnes Smith: Imprisoned 1847

Agnes Smith was one of the first prisoners to enter Stirling Old Town Jail when it opened its doors in 1847 and her crime was the concealment of her pregnancy. 

Binding her dress tight in an attempt to hide her condition, Agnes was delivered of a stillborn male child. 

Society didn’t look favourably on women who became pregnant outside of wedlock, even less so if they tried to conceal the birth of a stillborn infant and things may not have gone so well if the jurors had taken a harsher stance on Agnes’ situation. 

After a verdict of ‘Not Proven’ was passed – a sentence unique to Scotland – Agnes escaped a date with the hangman, instead serving time at Stirling Jail. 

Agnes would have been imprisoned in cells on the ground floor, away from the male prisoners on the upper stories. Her days kept full with domestic duties rather than learning to read and write like the male prisoners. 

Other women jailed at Stirling for the same offence include Helen Lennox,19 (1852), Ann Kelly, 29 (1860), Mary Gilfillan,18 (1864) and Isabella Erskine, 33 (1868).

Prisoner #22, James Nicol – Imprisoned August 1876

I’ve not gone down the rabbit hole looking into the crimes of James Nicol but he gets a mention here because he left something quite poignant during his time at Stirling Jail. 

The hopes of prison reformers would have been delighted to hear that solitary confinement allowed Nicol’s to reflect on his situation and subsequently give to the world a poem called ‘The Prison’  otherwise known as ‘ There’s Nae Luck…’.

Eight short verses describe the conditions Nicols was enduring as he spent 60 days inside Stirling in Solitary confinement – ‘dining on cabbage leaves, while round about in every cell, are nought but rogues and thieves’.

I’ve provided a short image from the guide book showing part of the poem above. 

Suffragette Ethel Moorhead: Imprisoned September 1912

Ethel Moorhead was the Scottish Leader of the Suffragettes’ and was a regular in the newspapers as she, and other suffragettes, campaigned for votes for women. 

Ethel was arrested after vandalising the Wallace Monument by smashing the case in which the ‘Wallace Sword’ was kept. 

After being convicted of ‘Malicious Mischief’ at Stirling Sheriff Court, Edith was given an option – either pay a £2 fine or serve seven days imprisonment in Stirling jail. 

Edith opted for imprisonment and is one of, I would guess, only a few suffragettes who did not go on hunger strike. 

An exhibition, ‘Malicious Mischief? Women’s Suffrage in Scotland’ was held in 2018 at the National Records of Scotland (NRS) in which Edith’s story was retold.

You can find out more on the NRS website, along with further information about Ethel herself. 

Stirling Old Town Jail Tour: What To Expect

I had no idea what to expect when I visited Stirling Old Town Jail, a quick hour or two visiting and a wander round is what I honestly thought – how wrong could I have been. 

Since my visit, I can see why Stirling Old Town Jail has been awarded TripAdvisors Travellers’ Choice Awards.

I’d certainly go back whether that’s to visit the jail again or to try the Jail’s two Escape Rooms – Jail Break or The Forgotten Cell.   

The Interactive Character-Led Tour Experience

I had heard that the jail gave performance tours, although I wasn’t too enamoured about joining a group of tourists and trudging from room to room – I like to lose myself in the history and sometimes you can’t do this in a group of people. 

My fears were soon crushed though the second I stepped over the threshold into the prison. Staff were immediately in character, welcoming us as though we were actual inmates which was fabulous! 

I can’t remember the name of our particular guide – I want to say Jonathan – but he was, without a shadow of a doubt, excellent. 

Changing character throughout the tour – from jailer to prisoner – he was full of energy and enthusiasm and clear passion for not only his job but also the history of the Old Town Jail.

He made the day as well as my visit! 

Key Areas You’ll Visit

We started off with an introduction to the prison while in the Governor’s Office and then moved out onto the lower wing of the prison. 

Here you get to see the rows of cells with their iron doors, stone walls18” thick and learn about the daily lives of the prisoners inside. 

Anyone not in line at this point was treated like a prisoner and ‘ordered’ to stand by the wall and at times, our guide would disappear off and come back as a different character with a costume changed to boot!

I didn’t realise that once the performance had ended you could then walk around the jail yourself with a separate audio tour, exploring more cells and heading on up to the roof to catch the stunning views from the exercise yard. 

Did you know you can actually download the audio tour before your visit via the Stirling Old Town Jail app? Just look for Stirling Old Town Jail wherever you get your apps – it’s free!

The main focus of the prison is of course the cells, which I describe below but you also see the Panopticon as you go up in the lift to the exercise yard.

The Cells

There are fifty one cells at Stirling Old Town Jail – fifty seven if you count the store rooms that could also be converted into cells if need be – or fifty two cells if you look at the plan drawings of the jail. 

Of course, you don’t get to see all of the cells, but you do get to see a fair number – although I honestly didn’t count them. 

During the performance tour you’re shown the cells on the ground floor. I found out at the beginning of the tour that you’re not allowed to come back into this section of the prison once the performance is over, so I made sure I wandered into each cell when I could to take in the atmosphere. 

You’re given plenty of time, within reason, to look around things during the tour so please don’t think you’re going to miss anything while you’re here. 

Other cells throughout the jail are set up how the inmates would have lived – a simple hammock, the tools of the trade that particular inmate was learning.

During my visit, one of the cells had a hand-weaving look in the corner and in another there was a crank. 

In some cells you might see hooks sticking out of the walls. These were where you attached your hammock at night, unhooking it during the day so that you could use the space in your cell more efficiently and to give you room while you worked. 

Cells were fitted with an alarm system which rang in the central tower if a prisoner needed assistance. 

To show which prisoner had sounded the alarm, a label would appear outside the cell – although I would have thought a much more efficient system would have been some type of notification in the panopticon and guardroom itself. 

Keep an eye out for these as you wander around, they’re just up against the door frames. 

Cell doors were made of heavy iron, fitted with an even heavier iron lock and small peep hole. 

You’ll notice that some cells are painted white. This is exactly how they would have been when the prison was a working prison. It was so that the cells could be as light as possible, and to maximise natural light. 

The Exercise Yard

I was lucky that on the day I visited the weather in Stirling was glorious and so, when I made my way up to the exercise yard at Stirling Old Town Jail, way up there on the roof of the building, I got a fantastic view of Stirling.

There’s the most fabulous view of The Church of The Holy Rude, which if you’re eagle eyed during your visit to the prison, will notice a mention of the body snatching case that happened here in 1823.

It is here that prisoners were allowel a much cherished 15 minutes of fresh air a day – although elsewhere this figure is given as 30 minutes. 

While enjoying the Scottish elements, prisoners would also take the opportunity to empty their chamber pot and refill their water jug. 

Life Inside Stirling’s Old Town Jail

The prison that you wander around today only materialised after the town’s Tolbooth prison was branded as ‘the worst prison in Britain’ in 1841 and the building of a new facility became inevitable. 

Life inside Victorian prisons is notorious for being harsh, pointless (nothing like breaking human spirit) and downright depressing, but what about Stirling? 

Was that any different under William Brebner’s new and improved Separate System?

Before I plough straight into the daily drudge of the Victorian prisoner at Stirling, we’ve got to get you into your cell first and at Stirling, as with every other Victorian Prison, there were a few rules and regulations you had to go through first. 

Upon Arrival: Prisoner Admissions

All prisoners, male and female, were removed of his or her clothing before entering the jail and ‘every other article in his possession’. 

Harsh you may say, but don’t they still do this in today’s prisons? Just like today, an inventory was taken of prisoners’ belongings and if they could read and write, they were asked to sign and find it correct. 

Not sure what they would have done if they weren’t literate – the most obvious answer here is nod as they look at the contents and make their mark – usually a shaky X at the end of the document which has the words ‘the mark of John Doe’ written either side. 

One interesting characteristic imposed at Stirling was the required length of prisoners’ hair. 

Unlike say the Victorian prisons of Millbank or Pentonville where prisoners’ heads were shaved on processing for hygiene and to maintain uniformity, at Stirling things were quite different. 

‘No Prisoners hair shall be cut against their will’ the notice says as you walk around the prison today. Unless the cutting of one’s mane was required for health reasons, inmates could keep their hair how they wished. 

Hair was never to be cut shorter than was the fashion outside of the prison and no prisoners’ head was ever to be shaved.

From here on in you were known as a number, the same number as the cell you inhabited. So if your 12 month stint happened to be spent in cell 23, then that’s who you’d be – prisoner 23. 

Booking someone into Stirling could take upwards of an hour on occasion and once the process was complete, newly interred inmates would be given their uniform in coarse grey material (possibly wool?) and a tin cup and plate.    

Daily routine of prisoners

Structure, structure structure – that was the order of the day in any Victorian prison and Stirling loved a daily routine just like the rest of them. 

No prisoner, they didn’t care if you were male or female, would spend more than 15 hours out of bed – a rule that I think many would perhaps welcome today with a 12 hour shift being the norm in many jobs.  

Your day would begin no later than 6am when, after a quick roll call to make sure no one had escaped (or died) during the night, you had 45 minutes to sit down alone in your cell to a breakfast of porridge – hopefully hot – before your day really got underway. 

Under Brebner’s Separate System, prison guards spent 12:30 pm to 1 pm each day teaching literacy to male prisoners, no doubt identifying those in need when taking their belongings upon admission.

Prisoners were each required to do 10 hours of work a day, excluding Sundays. Between 7am and noon, and again from 2pm after exercise until dinner at 6:30 pm, male prisoners were put to learning a trade (yes I know that’s only nine and a half hours but that’s what the resources say).

This ranged from hand-loom weaving (keep an eye out for one set up in a cell during your visit) to net making – for the landlocked sailors of Stirling – or cobbling, which is, of course, shoemaking. 

Prisoners would also be involved in that infamous pastime, Oakum Picking, and at Stirling, prisoners were required to pick 2lb of oakum a day. 

A dreadful activity that ruined the fingers of the picker, killed the mind quicker than an episode of Coronation Street and produced tons upon tons of wadding to stuff into the crevices of Britain’s ships making them watertight. 

Female prisoners were put to equally as industrious tasks which kept to a more traditional flavour.  

With their cells on the ground floor away from the influences of male prisoners, women and children were assigned to domestic duties, much like they would have been at Gloucester Prison.

Meal Times

I’ve already mentioned breakfast, which consisted of hopefully hot porridge but the main meal of the day at Stirling was something called ‘Stirabout’ or ‘Skilly’, which as you’ll see, sounds disgusting. 

Stirabout derives its name from the Irish Skillagalee, a nutritious, yet tasteless, oatmeal and barley broth that was kept boiling all day long.

Potatoes, meat, molasses and bread thrown in each time the cook was passing by the sounds of things. By the time it was ready to eat, the Stirabout would be a mushy stew.

Prisoners consumed about ten and a half pints of this stuff a week, taken alongside black bread. 

A quick search in the British Newspaper Archive and you can easily come up with adverts inviting tenders to supply the prison with food and various sundries each week on a three month contract. 

The advert above shows items including:

• Salt Herrings (each barrel containing 1000-1200 herrings)
• Necks of Beef
• Split peas
• Bread – coarse rolls or baps
• Pipeclay
• Treacle

This of course is just a potted history of Stirling’s Old Town Jail and I am indebted both to the official guidebook and the superb book by David Kinnaird, ‘Auld Stirling Punishments’  for the wealth of information they have provided.

David is actually one of the guides at the jail and if you’re lucky enough to visit on a day that he’s there like I was, he’ll sign a copy of his book for you if you buy it! 

Is Stirling Old Town Jail Worth It? My Personal Experience

No prizes for guessing that I’m going to wholeheartedly say that Stirling Old Town Jail is a must-visit attraction whether you’re staying in Stirling or visiting Stirling from Edinburgh on a day trip. 

Sure there’s other Victorian prisons to visit in Scotland which are just as good, such as Inveraray Prison, but Stirling has the edge – trust me. 

So top tips then for making the most of your visit. 

Let’s Get You There: Booking Options

I pre-booked my slot at Stirling Old Town Jail to guarantee entry, although you can just turn up if you’re feeling spontaneous. 

Tours depart every 30 minutes so you won’t have too long to wait if you just miss one or the one you want is full up. 

You can book directly on the website for Stirling Old Town Jail and I highly recommend that you do, especially if you’re visiting during peak tourist season.

Just remember that this is one of the top things to do in Stirling and so spaces will sell out fast. 

Parking Details

Oh what luxury for Stirling Old Town Jail has its own parking! Just head through the main archway past the VisitScotland iCenter. Accessible parking is also available. 

For Sat Nav users, the postcode is FK8 1EA.

Stirling Old Town Jail Escape Rooms

I am fast becoming a fan of historic Escape Rooms and have yet to try the two on offer at Stirling Old Town Jail. 

I’m personally tempted by the Jail Break Escape Room, but if you want to try your hand at escaping, both rooms can be booked on the Stirling Old Town Jail website.

Stirling Old Town Jail Shop

Shopaholics beware here because I can guarantee that you’ll be leaving with something after your visit here. 

I bought numerous books on haunted Stirling as well as David Kinnaird’s book on  Auld Stirling Punishments mentioned above.

But there’s so much to choose from here, you won’t be disappointed.

Punishmint anyone? 

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