John Leathwood
08.03.2025
Tour guide Graham made the day. Very experienced, knowledgeable, funny and interesting. Highly recommended
Michael Gem
01.03.2025
Excellent tour. Our tour guide, Graham, was superb. He was informative and amusing.
Lenny Penn
25.02.2025
Amazing place, gets you thinking
Gaz Gallant
23.02.2025
Absolutely brilliant experience highly recommended the tour guide Graham is excellent well worth the visit
Paul Williams
21.02.2025
Excellent tour, well worth a visit, very informative and so glad we did it.
Recommend booking a guided tour get the expert first hand account of prison life, you are then free to roam around on your own afterwards.
Allow a good couple of hours and be prepared for some stair climbing (but not too much) some people had their well behaved dogs with them which was nice to see.
Paul Elliott
19.02.2025
What a amazing, unique experience.
Did the self tour.
Seokjin Ham
19.01.2025
The prison was formerly known as The Dana, and it was designed by John Hiram Haycock and established by Thomas Telford in 1793. The current building was rebuilt in 1877, incorporating the Victorian-era prison reform policies into its structure. Until 1922, the prison also housed female inmates. The prison gained notoriety as a site of public executions, which contributed to its dark reputation. The prison imposed forced labor, strict discipline, and harsh living conditions on its inmates, making it known for its severe environment. Before its closure in 2013, due to cost-cutting measures and deteriorating facilities, the prison was one of the most overcrowded facilities in England and Wales. Today, it serves as a popular tourist attraction, offering visitors various activities to experience its dark and fascinating history.
Emma Roberts
18.01.2025
Been on 2 Ghost Hunts here,amazing lots of Paranormal Activity
james hughes
12.01.2025
Cool place to visit and look around. We did the escape room which was really good too.
Kevin Dunscombe
12.01.2025
Great experience! I think every teenager should go on this tour to remind them that prison isn’t nice!!
HL JV
30.12.2024
Great experience ! We did the guided Tour ; Michael was amazing; shared so much and made it really interesting; so much more than we expected ; I’m glad we did the tour.
Our well behaved dog was allow to come with us so that made it even better. It’s really great to have dog friendly places to explore.
Daniel Willingham
28.12.2024
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 in Shrewsbury.
Jonathan Joy
27.12.2024
Did the Hole escape room and had a pretty dreadful experience. Part of the experience is advertised as "being locked up by an officer", which sounds immersive but in actuality wasn't at all. The puzzles were okay, but so many of the coloured labels were faded meaning it was difficult to tell what colours they were actually supposed to be, or were so scratched out it was difficult to tell they meant something, which seems lazy seeing as it's a very easy thing to maintain. One of the solutions to a puzzle was a 4 digit number, which in a room full of locks with 4 digit codes seems like a no brainer to be one of them, yet somehow we were supposed to know to give this code to someone working there with no indication to do so meaning a huge amount of our time inside was wasted. This was compounded by the fact our intercom to communicate with staff didn't seem to do anything and the only way to get their attention is to start yelling and go unanswered for ages until they finally turn up, which is an extremely stupid system. Would not recommend.
J C
23.12.2024
Good place if you like history about the uk justice system or just history in normal , very friendly staff
Luke Baker
23.12.2024
Good visit, id say the escape rooms are a little low tech but good fun.
NudeRedShoe
15.12.2024
Absolutely fabulous lady on reception, great aura. We really enjoyed talking to her very knowledgeable. Didn't have very long to admire or explore properly. It's absolutely brilliant. You get to wander round on your own and just take it all in. You sure need over 2 hours to fully appreciate the building you are inside of and the history it offers to read. I went at around 11.45 on a sunday, and it was practically empty. I'm looking forward to going back again. I am certainly looking forward to an overnight stay next year..
Jayne Coleman
24.11.2024
Informative, eye-opening, shocking and very interesting
Rebekkha Weaver
13.11.2024
It was great, Dan was especially creepy and managed to bring a rabble of teenagers to absolute silence for an hour and a half. Guides know absolutely loads and there's a very horrible atmosphere in there. I would not do a lock in here, the place is haunted.
Dave Corrigan
08.11.2024
Took 20 further education students and did the education behind bars package and escape room. Absolutely brilliant. Staff are very experienced and knowledgeable. We had Mick and Dan. Students had a really positive experience and learned a lot. Good value for money and the guided tour well worth it.
Matthew Clarke
29.10.2024
My 12 year old daughter and I went for the 6:30 haunted ghost tour just before Halloween.
We arrived at the prison at 6:20 and managed to get parked in the pay and display opposite. This is a fixed price of 5.25 for 24 hours.
The do not let you in until exactly 6:30, so be aware incase it is raining.
Once inside and registered, the lights were turned off and we were asked only to use torches at certain points to allow for the atmosphere and experience.
Then our ghostly tour guide "appeared" and gave us the first jump scare of the night.
We then went on a tour of the courtyard, the governers office, a block, c block and the hanging area.
I each area we got really good stories and history.
There are also chilling ghost stories that really increase the tension.
There are a few jump scares on the tour.
And as the lights are out, the onky light for most of the tour is the candle light of the guide.
Seeing the cells in the dark really is spooky and you get the opportunity to be "locked in" for a few mins to really experience it. This is purely optional though and no pressure is put on you to do it.
Overall, I would recommend this ghost tour. We both loved it
Raye Phillips
28.10.2024
We joined the 10.30am guided tour on Saturday 26th October and it was brilliant. Graham (tour guide/ex-prison officer) was excellent. I could sit & listen to his stories all day.
Farzana Suri Victory Coach
27.10.2024
A visit is a revelation. Worth a visit
Stacey Owen
29.08.2022
Not been in yet, only the outside but looks amazing
Andrew Field
26.10.2024
Very interesting we had a guided tour with historian Donna. Excellent
Phil Crosgray
19.10.2024
Excellent tour around the prison,
History
Stores of the prisoners
Death row History
Ross M
18.10.2024
Nice interesting way to spend a few hours. The staff were all helpful and enthusiastic, the historical information around the place is interesting and thought provoking. The cafe is reasonably priced, but there were no vegan cakes, but there were vegan main meals and sides. Most of the audio information points around the place were not working and it would be nice if there was some outside seating. There is residential on-street parking nearby and so no need to pay. Would certainly return.
Jason Brown
15.10.2024
Fantastic place and Donna was a great guide.
