Shrewsbury prison visit

 I watched a program on the telly the other day about the prison's of Britain, it was called something britain behind bars and it visited some prisons, like Durham it also visited shrewsbury prison which closed in 2013 I think and its where executions were held,.

Shrewsbury prison is now a tourist attarction.  I have always wanted to visit prison and now I have the chance to go before it is probably knocked down and the land is sold to developers, well done Shrewsbury council for rejecting the previous plans and the prison would be no more.

I am planning to go to Shrewsbury on the train which as it happens the prison is opposite the train station which is handy and the train journey will for the day will give me a few hours in shrewsbury 

There is a tour there which you can go whcih is guided and there is one I think you can go on your own I am not sure if that just involves just wondering round yourself I think the guided tour is better as you will get more information, I think you can take photos aswell.

After going to the prison I will still have few hours to walk around the town, I like the border part between Wales ane England I spent many years in Herefored, and it will be nice to the border again area again, the train is straight through from the local village which handy as I can have a nap on the way back 

There is an old workhouse round here and i think they should have changed that into a tourist attraction reallly so poeple could come and learn from the past 

The only draw back of this day out in shrewsbury is that its an early start I guess but its summer so its a bit easier to get up though it does not feel like summer at the moment its quite autumnal the sun make a rare appearanc now and then, no summer last year no summer this year it seems which is shit 

I have always had a fasciation with prisons never wanted to spend too long in them though but I loved prison dramas and film i listen to a podcast called Ear Hustle which is a podcast about san quentine, I only thought america did prison tours ie alcatraz but no, they do them here too which is good and I look forward to it.

I went to Shrewsbury prison yesterday,  three hour train journey from here but it was ok the prison is just across the road, the platfrom on shrewsbury station, the number 8 was reserved for bringing in prisoners its now cloesed I think;

I got to shrewsbury abour an hour befroe the tour I wanted was going to start, I went to the shop to book a place anyway and incase they places might go i had tried to do it online but it was not going to happen for some reason, in the reception area the woman told me that I could go and have a look round before the tour, I was finally, going to have look at a prison ,real one one tha that been a working sone until 2013. I think I was a bit riddled with anxiety as the person on the desk got me a bit confused about which way to go, its probably that I was not sure of my barings either due the eyesight issue I suppose, 

When I went into the prison it was quite sureeal seeing a prison cell for the first time in real life so to speak. Actual people had been locked up these places, I think the first cell I saw was on the women's wing, not sure if got changed to men after they stopped women going to the prison, 

Apparently the prison was built in 1793 by the man who later built bridges Thomas Telford

This was the first pic I took and chopped off one of the towers for some reaon I don't claim to be any good at photography, from this gate you need to go round to the right for reception  and form the reception you go to the left to meet in the yard for the tour. There were quite few people on the tour, the guy taking it was an ex prison guard who had retired a long time ago there was also a prison van in the yard which I did not go into but got a full description of what it was like, it has no bog apparently 

The next part of the tour was the reception and how they housed people as time has gone on it seems more and more have share a cell unless you had reasons not to.  We then went in to the main area of jail which had parts that were more modern than others he described the slopping out bit, then we were taken to female part of the jail and up the stairs to the hanging room where apparently 8 people were killed, being in there was a bit unnerving, I was alive when the last person was hanged on this island which is a bit mad and apparently 40 percent of people want to bring it back

After the visit to the prison I went for walk around Shrewsbury it had been many years since I was there, I posted some pic on the facebook and someone messaged me saying there was no bog when he was there and I replied that it had changed since strangeways was smashed up in 1990, they use to treat them like animals before that and only allow then a bucket to piss in a bit undignifed, so this guy must have been there before 1990, i guess the interaction brought the whole experience alive, he recognised the place from a pic I posted the experience was obviously still vivid in his mind, the holiday has he  called it 

The pic is of the wall, on the left, behind which is platform 8 where the prisoners were brought to, in the 19th century and then transported to the prison, I use to travel through shrewsbury station a lot when younger and always wondered what the wall was for now I know.  the train  I use to catch was on platform 7 opposite the wall, the wall was built for security 

There are a few prisons in the Uk that allow you to and visit them as tourist attractions but they involve a lot of travelling for me and I don't drive so it would involve a bit of an excursion and I guess I would have to book a place on the tour before hand as they might be full and i could not return home on the same day as I landed like I could when visiting shrewsbury.  Gloucester allwws visits and does Shepton Mallet, though there is no train station there and I am sure the rest of the prisons that you can visit are not next door to the train station so it would involve a bit more planning that I did for the shrewsbury one when I just decided that morning to go and I was lucky that there was a space on the tour and that I did not need to book the previous day 

I am sure there are other prisons you can or ex prisons you can visit I would like to go to alcatraz but it would be a biy of a long haul I guess