The Calton Key

Johnathan and I had a meeting today with the Scottish Government in the wonderful Art Deco St. Andrew's House. Here is the Calton Key which is part of a display about the history of St Andrew's House and the Calton Jail, which was previously on the site, but demolished in 1935 to allow the building of St Andrew's House. The key shown here unlocked the main gate to the prison.

The site of St Andrew's House has a history as gruesome as any in Edinburgh.

Calton Jail was also the setting for executions, which often attracted large crowds outside.

Calton opened in 1817, built on the site of other prisons. Why a jail of all things was chosen for this site vexed many including Lord Cockburn who remarked:

'It had been a piece of undoubted bad taste to give so glorious an eminence to a prison.'

Jules Verne who visited Edinburgh in 1859 described the jail as resembling a small-scale version of a medieval town.

The inmates' perspective was less prosaic. Willie Gallacher, imprisoned in Calton for sedition during World War One, wrote:

'It was by far the worst prison in Scotland; cold, silent and repellent. Its discipline was extremely harsh, and the diet atrocious.

'The one hour's exercise in the morning was the sole opportunity we had of seeing each other, when desperate attempts were made to exchange a whisper or two. For breakfast, we had thick porridge and sour milk. For dinner, soup and a piece of dry bread. And for supper, thick porridge and sour milk.'

His fellow anti-war inmates included James Maxton and Arthur Woodburn who described it as 'the poorhouse of all prisons with the cold chill of a grim fortress. See the 'The National Archives' files on Woodburn's tribunal.

Sounds like a lovely place indeed!

I hope the week has started off well for you.