History

Since 1591 the City of Edinburgh has had a recognised gaol, first the Canongate Tollbooth which was built in that year and then the Old Tollbooth at ‘The Heart of Midlothian’.

The Old Tollbooth was the site of public executions, the most famous being that of Deacon Brodie, the Town Councillor by day and thief by night, and the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The story surrounding his execution is that he bribed the executioner to construct a metal brace, which was then fitted to his body prior to hanging. Immediately after being taken down from the gallows he was placed on a handcart and rushed to a house in the Cowgate where attempts were made to revive him, they were unsuccessful.

The Canongate Tollbooth was bricked up in 1745 as part of an attempt to stop the spread of an outbreak of the Plague and the Old Tollbooth was demolished in 1871. By then the city had a new prison, Calton Gaol, which was built in 1808 and remained in use until 1926.

In 1913 approximately 40 acres of land were purchased at Saughton as a site for a new prison. The cost of the land and the construction of a three-storey, eighty-four-cell building with appropriate services was £10,000. Excavation for the foundations started on 31 July 1914, and by the end of that year the walls were an average of 10 feet above ground. However further progress was much slower being affected by the scarcity of labour due to World War I.

Building continued until 1919 when the accommodation block, hospital block, reception block, steward’s store and office buildings were all completed and an Order of the Secretary of State on the 6 November appointed the new prison to be ‘a legal place of detention for all descriptions of civil and criminal prisoners’.

Building on the Saughton site continued until the prison was officially completed in 1930. Throughout construction assistance had been obtained from prison labour; every day, except Sunday, prisoners were marched in leg irons and manacles from Calton Gaol, along Princes Street and through Gorgie to Saughton, where they would work all day on the new prison until, at the end of the day, they would be marched back again.

Any prisoners still held in the old Calton Gaol were transferred to Saughton by 26 March 1925 and an Order of the Secretary of State on the 16 December discontinued the use of the old prison on Calton Hill. St Andrew’s House now stands on the site of the old gaol and if you stand in Market Street, at Waverly Station, you can still see parts of the old wall.

On its completion in 1930 the prison provided 242 single cells (158 male and 84 female), 13 association or other rooms (8 male and 5 female), 43 Officer’s quarters and a Governor’s house. Since then further expansion has included more accommodation halls, dining halls, worksheds, new reception building, visiting areas, Kitchen, stores and Conference Centre. By 1967, when Pentland Hall was erected, Edinburgh prison had seven accommodation halls providing approximately 504 cells and two dormitories with 52 spaces.

New Developments

Edinburgh prison has recently completed a full programme of redevelopment of prisoner accommodation, which now comprises three halls plus a Segregation Unit all with integral sanitation, washing facilities and power in cell. The newest of these buildings opened in June 2005 and brought an end to slopping-out at Edinburgh Prison.

In addition to residential development a purpose designed facility, "The HUB" which incorporates Health Care, Education, Social Work, Programmes, Links Centre and Chapel opened in June 2005, followed by a new Reception, Kitchen, Laundry and Training Centre in November 2006.

A third phase of development work has just commenced and will see "The Gate", Administration Office, Staff Training, Procurement, Estates, Staff Facilities and Car Park all being replaced with a finish date of Summer 2008.