Dartmoor Prison, Devon
It's more than 40 years since I was last inside Dartmoor Prison. Not as an inmate I hasten to add, but as a Home Office official. Many of our old prisons date from the middle of the 19th century. But Dartmoor is older than that, and was originally constructed to hold French prisoners from the Napoleonic wars. It doesn't really deserve its reputation and has never been a particularly high security prison. Prisoners have been allowed out to work in quarries on the moor or on the prison's farm. These days it is a category C prison - the lowest form of security, and provides a wide range of vocational training as well as various employment opportunities within the prison itself and in its farms and gardens.
The prison is situated at Princetown, on the western side of Dartmoor.
Dartmoor Prison, Devon
It's more than 40 years since I was last inside Dartmoor Prison. Not as an inmate I hasten to add, but as a Home Office official. Many of our old prisons date from the middle of the 19th century. But Dartmoor is older than that, and was originally constructed to hold French prisoners from the Napoleonic wars. It doesn't really deserve its reputation and has never been a particularly high security prison. Prisoners have been allowed out to work in quarries on the moor or on the prison's farm. These days it is a category C prison - the lowest form of security, and provides a wide range of vocational training as well as various employment opportunities within the prison itself and in its farms and gardens.
The prison is situated at Princetown, on the western side of Dartmoor.