On a brisk morning in November 1847, prisoners were transferred to the New County Jail, designed by architect Thomas Brown, and built according to the Separate System devised by William Brebner.

Despite its early success many in government resented the expense of the Separate System. Budgets were cut, and with less focus on reform, it wasn’t long before two, three or even four convicts could be found in many cells. With little time to teach or counsel prisoners, much of the guards’ time was taken up imposing harsh discipline over an overcrowded prison population.

The New County Jail was requisitioned by the War Office and became the Military Detention Barracks for Scottish regiments, run by the Military Provost Staff Corps. This was not a jail for Prisoners of War but for soldiers guilty of theft from stores, Absence Without Leave, Desertion, or other disciplinary offences. Their time was taken up with Drill, Square-Bashing or repairing their kit. After a dispute over rent due to Stirling Council, the MPSC closed its Detention Barracks on 30^th September 1935.

The Detention Barracks was decommissioned and the prison closed in 1936. During the Second World War it was used for gas-mask storage and distribution, and training for Stirling’s Civil Detention Volunteers – the Home Guard, or ‘Dad’s Army’, as it was known.

The remains of an escape tunnel dug by Home Guardsmen, during an exercise in 1943, can be found in one of our cells – no one told them the outer wall went 15 feet below ground level!

From the 1940s the Jail quickly became derelict. In the ’60s and ‘70s it was mainly used by the Burgh’s Truant Officers as a drop-off point for pupils skipping classes from local schools – or by reckless local tykes who used the ruin as a playground.