Ruthin Gaol

About

Explore Ruthin Gaol - one of North Wales' most fascinating buildings. From 1654 to 1916 thousands of prisoners - men, women and children, innocent and guilty passed through its gates. Now it's your turn!

Find out what prison life in the 19th Century was really like:
- visit the 'Pentoville' cell block
- see how the prisoners lived their daily lives: what they ate, how they worked and the punishment they suffered
- explore the cells - including the punishment, dark and condemned cell
- find out about the 'Welsh Houdini' and William Hughes - the last person hanged at the Goal
- learn about how how the prison worked - its ingenious Victorian heating, ventilation and communication systems, the kitchen, bread ovens and well and spy-holes
- bring yourself up to date - from wartime munitions factory to its present imaginative conversion