Calls for Bar-L to become Alcatraz-style tourist venue
IT has housed some of Glasgow’s most notorious killers and saw some violent criminals hung, but it is due to close its doors around 2025.
Now a proposal has been made to turn Barlinnie in to an Alcatraz-style tourist attraction.
The Riddrie-based prison should be transformed into a must-see site for visitors to Scotland, Labour MP Paul Sweeney has said.
The Glasgow MP wants the jail, which opened in 1882, to be saved for tourists like Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay.
Mr Sweeney said: “Whilst the Victorian Barlinnie is no longer fit for purpose as a prison fit for human habitation, it is nonetheless an iconic part of Glasgow’s history with an incredible social heritage dating back to the 1880s.
“Many infamous inmates from Peter Manuel to the Lockerbie bomber have passed through its gates, some never to leave. I would like plans to be considered now for the conversion of the ‘Bar-L’ to a new museum in a similar style to Alcatraz in San Francisco and Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin.
“This would not only preserve the iconic architecture but also create a major new tourist attraction in the east end of the city.”
He added: “Barlinnie Prison in my constituency is antiquated and the poor conditions in which vulnerable inmates are living was evident from my recent visit there. However there must be a full community consultation on the disposal of the current prison and its heritage should be preserved.”
A big part of the prison’s history was the hangings that took place there. In our series, Hanged at Barlinnie, we previously revealed the stories of the men who received the death penalty and the crimes which took them on that path.
In 1946 the first hanging took place at HMP Barlinnie. HMP Barlinnie replaced the gallows at Duke Street Prison.
A total of 10 judicial executions by hanging took place at the prison until 1960. This was before the death penalty was eventually abolished in the UK in 1969.
All the executions took place at 8am and the public was only informed of the hanging when the prison guards placed a notice on the gates of Barlinnie.
The public executioners
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on Facebook or Twitter during that time were Thomas Pierrepoint, Albert Pierrepoint, and Harry Allen. The men gained worldwide notoriety as public executioners. They travelled all over the world to carry out executions and made 10 visits to Glasgow between them for the Barlinnie hangings.
Serial Killer Peter Manual was among the most famous of the men who were hanged at the prison.
A Scottish Prison Service spokesman said: “The Government has a surplus land disposal policy. In the first instance, we would have to offer the land to other parts of the government to use it for other purposes.
“However, it would be our intention to dispose of the site when we no longer require it.”