Documents

Where documents include maps, the use of this data is subject to terms and conditions (https://portal.historicenvironment.scot/termsandconditions).

• Type

  Map

  Title

  Map for Aultbea House (Former Surgeon's House) HMP Perth, 3 Edinburgh Road, Perth (LB39328)

  Download(https://portal.historicenvironment.scot/document/600001080)

Summary

Description

Built in 1810-12, it is a 3-bay two storey house constructed of roughly squared and coursed whinstone with cream ashlar margins and quoins. There is a simple pilastered doorpiece and bracketed overhanging eaves and a piended slated roof. There is 12-pane glazing to the timber sash and case windows.

Statement of Special Interest

The site of HMP Perth has its origins as The Depôt, Scotland's principal place of internment for French prisoners or war. Designed by Robert Reid as a military prison in 1810-12, it was later chosen as the site for the General Prison for Scotland. Aultbea House is a rare surviving building from Reid's Camp which was reused as the Surgeon's House in Thomas Brown's reworking of the site to form the General Prison at Perth in the 1840s. The Depôt was unique – it was the sole purpose-built site of this scale and type constructed in Scotland. Buildings surviving from this period are therefore exceptionally rare and they tell us much about military architecture and design of the period. The site has been redeveloped since the 1980s and continues in use as a prison, HMP Perth.

The Napoleonic Wars (1803-15) where Britain and France were at war was the reason that the Perth Depôt for French prisoners of war was built. Large numbers of French prisoners were interned in the south of England but this was considered too great a risk for the security of the English ports and it was decided that a number of prisoners should be transferred to Scotland. Built to hold 7,000 men it was designed by Robert Reid (1774-1856; architect and surveyor to the King in Scotland from 1808-40) in 1810-12 as a military prison. The pair of former guardrooms and the former Surgeon's House are the principal survivors on the site of the former prisoner of war complex.

Category changed from B to A, statutory address, listed building record revised in 2015 as part of the Scottish Prison Service Listing Review 2014-15. Previously listed as 'Former Governor's House, 5 North Square'.

References

Bibliography

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