Dartmoor Prison Museum — Attraction in West Devon

'No photography' signs everywhere. Obviously they don't want the interior and exhibits been seen by others as you may not then go!

*edit 30-09-21 I enquired about the no photography and was told there is a Governors Order issued which forbids photography within the museum building due to "category D prisoners who meet certain criteria can be working at the museum under the ROTL scheme (release on temporary licence)" - if any photo of such a prisoner made it onto social media, etc. it could cause issues for the prison. There are also apparently a number of exhibits that are on loan to the museum and can't be photographed due to copyright laws.

As we entered we passed a couple on their way out, saying to each other something like "we just paid eight pounds for that" in a sarcastic and disappointed manner. I ignored the comments and thought that perhaps they weren't 'museum types'. Had to wait five minutes at the till while the person taking payments was 'entertaining/educating' the family in front of us. Ordinarily that type of behaviour is praise-worthy, but not when there's a queue and limited time left before the placed closed. The person then charged us £12 for the two of us and I had to correct him that it should be £8. The whole place feels more like an enthusiastic hobbiest has 'thrown' some displays together. There were dozens of laminated A4 sheets of small-print all over the place, which provided mostly relevant information, much of which had only very tenuous links to the history of the prison. The quality of the laminting was dubious too, certainly not professional. There were various items laying around that seemed like they had just been dropped - no explanation as to what they where and how they related to the prison. One 'room' (there were five) was filled with drawings, paintings and models created by inmates. OK, some may find it interesting, but that room was 20% of the entire museum. There is a floor marking guide system to take you around, but it didn't really work. You ended up discovering your own way around. To be fair, there were some exhibits that were very interesting but I would say that those were at the most 50% of the display material. The toilets weren't signed or indeed labeled outside as such, there was no way to dry your hands after washing nor any loo paper! The place isn't especially good for children. The ones we encountered seemed bored, non of the exhibits were bright, bold or attention grabbing. Perhaps I'm being extremely critical but both my wife and I were surprised at the how poor a museum it was and to an extent thought it should have been free or...

Staying on the Moor, it had crossed our minds that Dartmoor was famous for its prison. Was it still in use? Were you allowed a drive by? We had to take a look. As we drew closer, we could see there was a prison museum opposite, behind an incongruously colourful array of garden gnomes and hedgehogs. We paid the £12 family entry and were generally entertained by stories of escapees, Kray connections, home-made tattoo kits and the confiscated weapon display. They had pencilled a black eye onto the prisoner (shop dummy) to make it more realistic.

There is an easy to miss downstairs area by way of a slotted plastic curtain, which looks like you are going into a butchers/body disposal acid bath area from the Sopranos. No photos are allowed, mainly because it is run by prisoners (who also make the colourful ornaments in their workshops, which explained the display outside).

Interesting prison facts: The prison, built in 1815, came into its own in 1850 when Australia stopped taking our convicts. Due to its remote location and harsh regime it housed the most dangerous Victorian criminals. But because it is a listed building, and the Council refused to give it planning permission to upgrade its security in 2001, it has recently been downgraded and only houses category C and D prisoners these days. Were sad to learn that is not the prison from Porridge.

You are allowed to pop down the road to photograph the prison itself as long as there are no people in the shot, or they will confiscate your film (if you are from the 1980’s, which presumably is when the sign...

This museum wasn’t great for children. There is a lot of information to read on A4 sheets of paper which is probably very interesting to the avid museum goer. However a 7 year old isn’t interested in reading reams of paper. There are no kid friendly activities or exhibitions. It seems like this place needs a revamp or refresh. The whole museum just seems tired and old. There is no big highlighted boards to draw kids in. Instead there’s loads and loads of matchstick models made by prisoners 🤷‍♂️ there’s a great big space shuttle made out of paper by a prisoner in lockdown. Maybe quite cynical but I’m glad whilst we were in lockdown our taxes were paying for prisoners to make origami.

I thought there would be more exhibits such as actual mock up cells through different time periods or dress up parts for the children, however there was nothing like this.

Again, probably very informative to those without children that have time to take it all in and read it, but for a young family it wasn’t great even as a rainy...