The Entire Story of Peterhead Prison — Scotland’s Harshest Jail for Its Worst Convicts

Here’s the Peterhead description in the Dartmoor style: HM Prison Peterhead stood on the north-east coast of Scotland from 1888. It was built beside a harbour that needed a mountain of granite, so the convicts who were sent there cut the stone themselves. For more than a century it held some of the most dangerous men in Scotland. In 1987, the SAS flew north to end a siege on its roof. In this documentary, we cover the entire story of Peterhead Prison, from its opening on 7 August 1888 to its closure on 6 December 2013. That includes the darkest chapter in its history: the 1987 riot, when prisoners seized officer Jackie Stuart and held him on the roof for days, until the SAS stormed the building before dawn on 3 October. We trace the full arc: the Admiralty’s harbour of refuge and the prison built beside it to supply the labour. Scotland’s only convict prison, and the granite quarry and railway that fed the breakwaters. John Maclean, the Glasgow schoolteacher jailed for opposing the First World War, who was force-fed during a hunger strike. Johnny Ramensky, the safe-cracker who escaped in 1934. The place prisoners called the “Hate Factory”. The cells with no toilets, where men slopped out each morning. The negotiator who spoke to the men on the roof through a skylight. The inspectors who described its conditions as among the worst in Scotland. And the long road to closure, and a new life as a museum, where Jackie Stuart himself later told visitors his story. This is the story of a jail built to serve a harbour, kept going long after the age that created it had passed, and remembered for the one October dawn when soldiers had to be sent to bring a man down from its roof. Subscribe and turn on notifications for the next one. SOURCES & FURTHER READING: https://portal.historicenvironment.scot/de... https://www.prisonsinspectoratescotland.go... https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/past-... https://archive.news.stv.tv/north/1399069