Very interesting place, beautiful building from outside. Could do more with looking after that place, very wet and mouldy rooms. Would make the place more interesting by showing how the rooms were used ( mannequins and furniture), rather then empty rooms and only sign on the door. Audio headphones with guide would be ideal. We recently visited Peterhead prison and we were so impressed. The prison has got potential, but need to be more looked after

The staff were very friendly and overall the facilities were clean & tidy. It would be improved with more information signage throughout & more things like mannequins or articles/furniture. Some rooms have had that extra effort added & as a result look great, others, well the treadmill room was just a long, empty room with a handful of information boards. Perhaps even just a picture of what it would have looked like. Our 9yo was given a quiz sheet to complete as we went round, which was great, a good mix of questions & well pitched for the age range, but it would have been helpful to supply a clipboard which gets handed back in as other places do. Other than the cellfie spots & the quiz, there wasn't much else in terms of interaction activities for children. And the information boards, while good, were all quite adult in their language. There were some words we had to explain to our 9yo, for example. Maybe have some with simpler English so more people can access it. We did a self guided tour which was fab as we could walk at our own pace & go back & forth as much as we wanted. Perhaps the guided tours fill in the gaps more. The map we were given didn't seem to cover all the areas we were able to access, which would have been helpful as additional information. Overall, it was enjoyable & interesting, but we felt there could have been much more added to make it a really great day out. Signage for parking & the prison itself could be improved. We only found the entrance because we drove past it while searching for parking, but there seemed to be very little indicating where the prison entrance is.

Good on authenticity and very cleverly put together but the briefing was not good because of poor acoustics meaning some key details were not heard clearly. Please could the basic briefing be also written down and available in the cells. We booked the Easter special experience but there was no difference to normal from what we could tell.

Visited the prison on the 26th August having seen it advertise locally. So glad we did as it is a great day out. We had the 10:30 tour and it lasted about 1 hr 30 mins and the went around again to look at other areas and things we had not seen. The guided tour I would highly recommend. The guide was interesting and knowledgeable bringing the history of the prison alive from the 17th century right up to its closure in 2012. Suitable for all ages and interests, from historians to ghost hunters. You can do a self-guided tour as there are lots of information boards but you will miss out a lot of the smaller more interesting stories and details. At the time of writing there is a special offer on for the whole of August with 50% off if you use the code SUMMER50

Really disappointed by the overnight stay. A lot of it was blocked off due to Netflix filming. There were way too many people there so ghost hunting was not possible. The "bar" that was advertised with someone behind the desk selling cans for £4.50 each. No breakfast as advertised either.

Back again, this time for the ghost tour. Unfortunately not to the fault of the Shepton Mallet prison tour guide our experience here was not the best. It was let down by some very inconsiderate disrespectful drunks which booked on the same tour. These six individuals used this tour as a children halloween event, sitting on the floor heaving, making disrespect sounds, talking when our tour guide was talking to the group, they were extremely loud and had no respect for others. This ghost tour has amazing potential. The tour is not like the usual ghost tours with the pretend ghosty stories and the fake ghost sets all to try to make you believe it’s haunted. No, the tour is real, with real history in a real historic building. With the right group or the right people I can imagine this would be a fantastic experience. Reflecting back taking the drunks off the centre of the attention. Whilst we were walking around, the drunks went a different direction and the place went quieter my husband and my friend noticed a figure in front, and turned to me and said what are they up to now, referring to the drunks, I replied at the time and thought nothing of it, there is no one in front of me, the drunks are downstairs, not in front of us. My husband and my friend are Adamant, there was a figure in front of us. Regrettably I saw nothing, I feel that the six individuals ruined the experience not just for our small group, but the other couples, which also booked on to the tour. They certainly stressed me out with their behaviour, their rudeness and there extremely loud noises, even after the tour ended they continued with a silly behaviour, one of the six individuals decided to lay in the middle of the road, so no one could leave the car park!! I would love to do this ghost tour experience again without the drunks, although you cannot guarantee after you pay your money you will have the right people in your group, The group is fairly large. Also unfortunately these individuals have made me reconsider on doing the night behind bars, Which I was looking forward to book on too, I don’t want to run the risk of having the experience ruined again by the wrong kind of people.

Umm…we did a self guided tour which cost a decent amount for 4 of us, I feel rude saying it however it just in our opinion is really not worth the money we paid. The staff at the entrance were friendly and helped show us the map of where to initially begin, however I have to say walking around the very damp, cold, eery prison was just not what I expected - perhaps it would be better with a guided tour so you can understand more but it just felt extremely overrated for what we paid, although, it is quite interesting and we did spend a few hours there it seemed very repetitive and the place I’m afraid are actually not very well signposted at all, I feel we may have missed stuff and the information in some areas is quite bland therefore a lot of the stuff we actually hadn’t a clue what it was. I understand local interests like this need the funding to continue being open to public, and for the people who enjoy it I’m sure they would find it rather fascinating, it definitely has a story to tell - which is probably better told by a guide, then trying to figure it out yourself. Although it isn’t somewhere we would visit again, if you are thinking of going I would definitely recommend a guided tour so you understand more and get more of a story behind the history and more understanding to everything. Lots of long heavy walking, with huge steps as expected so no good for disabled access or those who struggle with ability/movement.