The renovation includes a complete overhaul of the Inveraray Jail gift shop, customer toilets and essential maintenance in the main thoroughfares of the prisons .

We are looking forward to seeing our new and improved customer facilities.  As a privately run business, the maintenance and upkeep of the historic building is 100% our responsibility.  We are passionate about keeping this part of Argyll history in tip top condition whilst ensuring the best facilities and experience for our visitors.  We’re sorry for any inconvenience our short term closure may cause in the meantime.

For details of our opening times over the Festive period, please visit our website.  We will re-open on Saturday 15th January 2011 at 10am.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR.

The Life Mask and Death Mask of Burke

Burke & Hare are said to have murdered at least 16 people, possibly up to 30, in Scotland’s capital city of Edinburgh. The infamous criminal pair sold the corpses of their innocent victims to anatomy professor and lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, Dr Robert Knox, who used them for dissection and research. Their chilling crimes in the gothic city ended 181 years ago when Burke was found guilty and publicly executed. Hare escaped the hangman after giving evidence against his partner in crime.

The story of how the two heads and the hangman’s noose ended up at Inveraray Jail, in the west of Scotland, remains unexplained since neither Burke nor Hare were ever held at the prison.  A life mask is thought to have been made of Hare during the trial whilst Burke’s shaven head was cast following his public hanging. A handful of masks are known to exist with one in the USA, Swansea and St Andrews and Edinburgh Universities.

Inveraray Jail, Argyll

Unfortunately, we have never been able to find out how they came to be here at the jail. It may be due to the new ‘science’ called phrenology which was popular at that time. It was believed the shape and contours of a person’s head could dictate their personality and ‘experts’ held talks across the country using casts of the heads of infamous criminals to illustrate their point.

With the increased awareness of Burke & Hare generated from the release of the new movie this weekend, it is a very relevant time to finally put them on display.   We are looking forward to sharing the fascinating artefacts with our visitors this weekend and plan to keep them on display going forward.

What was that?!

With its gruesome history and haunting tales, Inveraray Jail is getting into the Halloween spirit this weekend. Two late night ghost hunts, which are now fully booked, are taking place on Saturday and Sunday night. Unexplained sightings and unusual activity recorded by visitors, staff and paranormal investigators suggest that the establishment is haunted. Meanwhile, the jail’s real life characters are ready to share with visitors how prisoners were treated in the 19th century. 6000 men, women and children were tried and served sentences in the jail between 1820 and 1889. The jail also features in popular TV programme Most Haunted Series 13, which was released on DVD last week.

Voting forms are currently on display throughout the jail showing images of the party leaders behind bars, including Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg.  Visitors are being asked to vote for the party leader or someone of their own choice they would like to be released from jail to run the country.  Just like a normal election, visitors can fill out the ballot paper and pop their completed form into the jail’s ballot box.  Since the voting forms went on display on 7^th April, the jail has received a number of votes, particularly from Easter Holiday visitors, and they plan to make a prediction before the Election Day on Thursday 6^th May.

We are looking forward to see which party leader will receive the ‘get out of jail’ card and it will be interesting to see if our predictions are right! We suspect all the party leaders will be left to stay in Jail and a peoples’ choice will attract the most votes!  Those voting in our opinion poll should bear in mind that many prisoners of Inveraray Jail faced transportation to Australia or were sentenced to years of punishment and hard labour in cold, damp prison conditions!

The Warder

Rob as Warder

Andrew Boyd, one of the jails longest serving warders, is played today by staff member Rob Irons.  Visitors can identify him by his uniform which is, and was, an all black button neck tunic and peaked cap.  Rob, a former present day prison officer, likes to regularly lock up inmates (visitors)! After all, it is his job.  The warder assisted the Governor who was in total charge of the prison.  Boyd’s employment at the jail began in 1880.  He lived just over the wall behind the prison in one of the cottages but he was only allowed to go home for just two hours every evening.  The warder was expected to sleep in the prison every night and work long hours for very little pay.  Today, visitors can have good nosy round his room.

The Matron

Hanna as Matron

The Jail had a matron, usually the Governor’s wife, whose duty it was to be responsible for the female prisoners.  A typical day in the life of the matron is performed by actors at the jail.  Her day-to-day routine involved the general up keep of the female prison block (known as the Old Prison) and, along with her husband, she was expected to teach the prisoners how to read and write.

Some Naughty Argyll Ladies

Some prisoner stories are too terrifying to bring back to life, so the characters at Inveraray Jail focus more on the light-hearted, comical stories. In particular, there were some very naughty ladies in Argyll during the 1800s!  Take 38 year old thief Helen Mackintosh from Campbeltown.  After stealing eight stockings, a petticoat and a series of clothing originally left outside to dry, Helen’s footprints in the snow were traced back to her home.

Sam as Elizabeth

She refused to walk after she was arrested so they had to wheel her to the courthouse in a wheelbarrow!  Helen was jailed for three months whilst waiting to be transported to Australia.  Meanwhile, re-offender Elizabeth Henderson, portrayed by Sam Potts,  regularly features in today’s prison.  Elizabeth stole silverware from the Dunoon Hotel where she worked and sold it for alcohol (gin was her favourite!).

Museum Guide and actor Hanna Nixon explains her role at the jail: “Many times I play the role of female prisoner Eliza Thorpe from London who, according to our records, served a two month sentence in the jail in the late 1800s.  Eliza was locked up in the Old Prison which, at that time, was where all female prisoners were held.  Whilst on holiday in Oban, Eliza was accused of stealing from a hotel.  However, it is thought that the man she was with, who seems to have been a very bad influence, was the actual guilty party.”

She added: “What is so fascinating about Inveraray Jail is that after meeting one of the characters when exploring the prison and courthouse, visitors can go on to the exhibition and find out what happened in the end for the prisoner.  It’s a great reminder that these characters actually existed once and makes the experience very real.”

‘Criminal Lunatics’

Luckily, visitors won’t come across Peter Campbell in today’s prison.  On Thursday 11^th January, 1844, according to a report at the time in the Glasgow Herald, Campbell assaulted his aunt and his mother.  Using a razor blade, the schoolmaster from Craignish, almost ‘severed the head of his aunt’ and ‘severely cut his mother about the face, neck and arms’ leaving her in a ‘dangerously ill’ state.  Campbell was judged ‘insane’ and received a life sentence on 19^th April. After spending three years in Inveraray Jail, Campbell was finally moved in March 1847 to the new criminal lunatics section of the General Prison in Perth.

Thousands of male prisoners were tried and locked up at the jail, serving sentences for a range of crimes including assault, theft and murder.  Male prisoners occupied the twelve cells in the New Prison when the completed building was opened in 1848.

Mischievous Children

Many children, some as young as seven years old, served sentences at Inveraray Jail.  Juvenile crimes were normally for very minor offences.  13 year old Hector MacNeil from Lochgilphead got 30 days for stealing a turnip whist 11 year old James Muckle was sentenced to eight days for stealing apples.  For children without a home, committing a petty crime was usually a purposeful way to get a warm bed, food and clothing.  However, in 1852, ‘whipping’, for boys only, was introduced as a punishment and an alternative to sending juvenile offenders to prison.  Many children were often sent to reformatory school at the end of their prison sentence.

The Haunted Cells

Though the jail was closed down in 1889, there is a chance that many of its occupants never left.  Unexplained sightings and unusual activity recorded by visitors, staff and paranormal investigators suggest that Inveraray Jail is in fact haunted.  With its dark history and a haunting reputation, the jail was recently an obvious venue for TV programme Most Haunted in 2009.  Overnight Ghost Hunting events open to the public take place throughout the year at the jail.

Mark Turner

Mark Turner, Paranormal Investigator at Ghost Events said: “We have carried out investigations for several years now at Inveraray Jail.  We are starting to notice several patterns in our findings particularly with the noises and sounds we have recorded.  The jail certainly has a high level of paranormal activity in comparison with many other sites we have visited around Scotland.  This nation is blessed with such rich history so it’s the ideal place to search old buildings and historic landmarks for evidence of the afterlife amid the countless reports of paranormal activity.”

Back to www.inverarayjail.co.uk

After nearly 175 years since she was sentenced at Inveraray Jail, Helen Mackintosh’s crime is featured on television. Helen’s story is one of three TV adverts on STV this summer. The ads are all themed around the many interesting and varied stories visitors discover when visiting the Courtroom and Prisons at Inveraray.

Helen Mackintosh - Inveraray Jail

All three adverts can now be seen on the Inveraray Jail website here.

Helen’s sorry tale is detailed below, but there is no record of where she ended up…….

Helen Mackintosh –Thief

Helen Mackintosh, aged 38, from Campbeltown spent three months in Inveraray Jail awaiting transportation to Australia. She had been found guilty of theft and, with two previous convictions, had been sentenced by Lord Mackenzie on April 22^nd 1836 to seven years transportation.

Three months earlier in Campbeltown she had stolen a blue drugget petticoat, an apron and a pair of moleskin trousers off a washing line. She had also removed one shift, two shirts and eight stockings off some bushes where they had been spread out to dry.

There had been snow on the ground at the time and the tracks of Helen Mackintosh’s stockinged feet had led Police Constable Andrew MacWilliam to her home. She was arrested, and as she refused to walk, was wheeled to the courthouse in a barrow.

There is no record of Helen Mackintosh going to Australia.