Shrewsbury Prison — Attraction in Shrewsbury

This is an absolute marvel of a place to visit and gives a great insight of how prisoners were treated and lived on the inside. The great thing about this place is there is a variety of tours to enjoy and experience the place and get the most out of your visit and these tours include the guided tour conducted by a prison officer which details information on what life was like for prisoners and how they lived and were treated and also learn some interesting useful facts about the prison and its history. The other tours include the Self Guided Tour where you can tour the prison at your own leisure and take in its surroundings and atmosphere and the last tour to mention is the Ghost Tour usually conducted at night and you can uncover what lurks in the prison at night which is renowned for being one of the most Haunted prisons in the UK. The best and most strongly recommended of the tours definitely has to the guided tour due to the fact you get a very detailed insight into the history of the prison, how prisoner conditions have changed marketedly over the years due to reforms that were needed and required and also the guided tours are conducted by people who have experience of being a prison officer or some knowledge of the prison system so you can get a clear idea of how prisons have functioned from the past up to the modern age and also the guided tours are thoroughly informative and fascinating full of interesting and useful about the history of the prison, how prison condition and cells have changed over time and the guided tours for these reasons are throughly riveting and engaging. There are a number of interesting and exciting experiences including The Cell Escape Room, The Hole Escape Room, Prison Break, Night Behind Bars and Ghost Hunting Behind Bars and there are extra charges for these but they are well worth it as they are very riveting, captivating, interesting, interactive and fun to do. There are a number of interesting areas to see such as The Governors Office where you can see how the Prison Governor conducted his time and worked, how prisoners were booked into the prison and the checks that had to be undertaken before they got into the prison itself. Other interesting areas include A- Wing where you can see different examples of cells through different elements including examples of a female and male victorian cell, 1960 cell, 1995 cell, 2013 cell and Modern Cell and from looking at these different cells you can a clear and exact idea of how prisoners have changed dramatically through time and some unsanitary conditions they lived where they were at risk of disease. In the A- Wing you can area where prisoners were treated for health issues and discusses health care of prisoners and also a Prison Chapel showing prisoners conducted their religious activity whilst in prison and there is an interesting section on Britain's most notorious killers. Seeing the A-Wing is amazing as you can get a great and clear idea of how prisoners lived and conducted their daily lives. Other interesting area are the C-Wing where you can learn about the ghosts that inhabit that area of the prison and also see the execution room where prisoners were executed and also the rooms where the executioner would sleep and stay before the execution and also see a room where the prisoner who was being executed would stay prior to the execution. In the execution room you can see some interesting information about the executions that have taken place at the prison. You can learn about how prisoners worked and there is a small museum containing some interesting prison related artefacts. There is a gift shop and cafe selling a range of food, drinks and souvenirs at reasonable prices. Overall this is an absolutely delightful, enjoyable, fascinating and engaging place to visit, which makes for a great day out. Well worth a visit whilst...

I really hate to leave bad feedback for places, but after reading great views I was really excited about surprising my boyfriend for his birthday as we love escape rooms, and this seemed like a really cool concept.

We did the Hole as it was recommended for people who had done escape rooms before, but I really cannot see this as the case.

It began with congregating with up to 9 other groups of people as there are 10 rooms running at once. By the time we actually got into our room it had been 35 minutes of waiting, which is a shame when it took us only 20 minutes to escape. There was only one staff member on, Alice who was nice and this is absolutely not her fault, but could have done with more people or staggered start times. Especially as then she had so many people to deal with when we needed help.

The escape room itself was one room only, and we were given clues beforehand that made it even easier which we would rather be optional. There was one code to get that opened three different things which seemed really lazy, and made the whole thing easy and short and not enjoyable. We also had to tell the staff that the padlock to actually leave the room was already unlocked, but I would have otherwise overlooked this mistake.

Unfortunately I did leave upset that I had been excited and spent money on a present that ultimately was not at all worth the price.

The self guided tour was interesting to have a wander round but would have been better if there were more audio aspects, or easier boards to read as I didn’t think it would be accessible for some people, so consider if dyslexic etc doing a guided tour so there is much less to read. I don’t think that this would have been worth £15 on it’s own. (It was £20 with escape room). I also can’t see that it would be suitable for younger children as it had lots of references to suicide and drugs and brutal murders etc.

The car park opposite was convenient but not easy to get into and quite small but there is another down the road for the station that is NCP.

I did have high hopes from reading the reviews but after going I can’t agree with all these people who said the escape room was great/didn’t even escape and wanted to mention to others...

Don't stay over for a good night's sleep 😂 I loved the experience and being able to say I've slept overnight in a prison, but that's as far as it goes ha. If you do stay over, they didn't check our bags at all, so if you wanted to sneak anything in, I don't see how they'd stop it. We also managed to get free parking right alongside the prison on Beacall's Lane. You have to be inside the prison by 8.15pm (I believe), we also ate at Dough & Oil beforehand and bought the leftover pizza in, it was deliciously weird. You get a sheet to cover the foam mattress but that's all. We went in April and we only needed our sleeping bag and pillow, it was surprisingly warm! From then you have until 10pm to just chill, wander round or drink/eat in their cafe...you literally have free reign, if it isn't locked, just go inside. We didn't eat at the prison but Carling was £4 per can and a burger and chips were no more than £10 (if I remember correctly). The cafe shuts at 10pm and there's a strict "no booze outside the canteen doors" in general but after 10 you do what you like really. 10pm we had the guided tour. It covered a fair amount but due to us wandering around pre tour, we kinda knew most things the tour guide said and we'd been more places. Even so, the guide was brilliant. Around 11pm the tour finishes and everyone is left to their own devices. You'll soon realise there's probably a few ghost hunters or just people on the beers wanting to scare each other throughout the night. We went to bed at about 12 but the prison itself is rather echoey and each cell has a little door stop you hit everytime so that was the nights soundtrack. We managed to get 3-4 hours sleep then was woken at 6am! The next morning, they offered a free bacon or sausage butty, something they amazingly failed to mention when booking. We skipped it due to one of us being veggie and it being 6am haha. But the service seemed quick. I read the doors opened at 8am but we left early and explored Shrewsbury at 7am whilst no one was about! Do bear in mind there are no showers and maybe no more than 5 toilets for a fair few people. We never waited due to avoiding the usual toilets and going to the ones near...