Researched by Heritage Advisory Group
In 1819 a new City prison ‘pleasantly situated without the walls, at the junction of Queen street and Northernhay street’ was erected on the current site of the Thistle Hotel.
It consisted of: ‘the debtors’ ward, the felons prison, and the bridewell, or house of correction; and comprises 36 cells, 7 wards, 8 day-rooms, and 6 airing yards, all enclosed by a lofty outer wall’. The building replaced the city prison at South Gate, considered by one John Howard as ‘one of the most unwholesome and most dismal places of confinement he had ever seen’. Reverend George Oliver recalled at the time ‘We heartily rejoiced at witnessing the keystone over the archway let in and drop in its place towards the bottom of Northernhay in 1818. Thank God!’
The prison was demolished and replaced by the Rougemont Hotel in 1877.
