Camp Hill prison is located on the
outskirts of Newport on the Isle of Wight
The former category C prison had
the capacity to hold over 500 inmates
and has remained vacant held in reserve
capacity by the Ministry of Justice
since shutting back in 2013. Earlier this
year I uploaded a couple of videos of
some of the other noteworthy buildings
of the prison estate; Holly Grange and
The Firs, as interesting as both these
sites are they kind of pale when
compared to the huge empty prison just
across the road. Filmed over several
undetected visits this ambitious
explore takes a look inside of this
well guarded and huge 16 acre site for
the first time since closing.
Getting into a secured over 100 year old
prison was always going to be a
challenge, the site has been on total
lockdown since it closed back in 2013,
this meant that every gate had been
securely locked and every fence looked
solid, high and covered in razor wire. If
the physical barriers were not deterrent
enough there was also the danger of CCTV
and a 24-hour security presence.
This consisted of at least two security
guards at all time one on the outside
and one somewhere on the inside... There
was a good reason why no one had been
stupid enough to try and get back inside
We spent several months trying to figure
out the best way in, many late evenings
were spent out in the rain and snow
searching for possible points of entry.
This consisted of rattling gates testing
the CCTV and even staking out the
security guards, we spent hours
researching the prison online speaking
to former guards and putting together
plans of the site. All of our efforts led
us to the conclusion that there was only
going to be one way in, we were going to
have to climb over the fence.
The fence that we were looking at was
approximately 6 meters high and topped
off with a double stack of razor wire,
it was made of a heavy-duty mesh so it's
likely to support our weight,
however, the gaps were less than half a
centimeter wide, this meant that it would
be impossible to climb unaided, it was also not going to be possible to tie into
anything but the very top. The first one
up was gonna have to do so somehow as
a free climb, fortunately one of us is an
experienced climber and they devised a
crazy way of getting up the fence using
hiking crampons and ice axes.
The fence was extremely intimidating and
although a fall would be unlikely to
kill you it would've resulted in a
really nasty injury potentially mangled
up and razor wire. We went up and over
without any problems and we were now
standing literally locked up inside of
the prison. It was an amazing feeling
knowing that we finally cracked
something the only a few hours before
had felt impenetrable and at this
point it would have been easy to get
carried away with the buzz of adrenaline
and run off around the site exploring.
For all the effort it had taken so far we
didn't want to blow it by getting caught
and we also didn't want this to be a one
and done trip, there was more work that
we had to do before the exploring could
commence. Firstly we had to conceal the
entrance, as ropes hung up on the fence
would have been very obvious to anyone
passing or to a night patrol.
Once the ropes are taken care of we then
had to carefully scout out the inside of
the facility without alerting a guard
potentially lurking somewhere inside,
this resulted in several hours of
carefully creeping around the shadows
trying to identify safe passageways
through the site. It was a really
nerve-racking couple of hours as the
prison's incredibly noisy; doors would
sway and slamming the wind, lights would
flicker randomly coming on or off without
warning and the sound of faulty cell alarms
echoed out across the entire site. This
all built a constant paranoia that we
were being watched from somewhere and
that at any moment we were about to get
caught. Luckily our vigilance and
planning paid off as we managed to get
in and out without any issue, or drawing
any attention to our late-night visit.
Now with the plan of how to get in the
next couple of weeks were spend
regularly visiting and carefully
exploring the site, surprisingly it
didn't take long to find open doors, all
of the original prison locks had been
removed, assumedly when the site closed
as a security measure and all that
remained were a few cheap padlocks, which
over the years have gone rusty and many
of these have been left open as they
were just too corroded too close.
We quickly worked out that the CCTV was
either not being actively monitored or
was just not on, this was quite unexpected
especially considering that the annual
cost to maintain and secure the site is
almost a quarter of a million pounds of
taxpayers money.
HMP Camp Hill was formally opened in March of 1912 by
Winston Churchill. The site was built
using prison labor from the neighboring
prison Parkhurst and work started to
construct the new preventative detention
prison between 1909 and 1910. Camp Hill was
designed to provide a different type of
prison with the aim to reform habitual
criminals, the cell blocks were much
smaller and less institutional in their
appearance when compared to conventional
prisons at the time, initially six cell
blocks of 50 were built around a central
open gardened area. Camp Hill continue to
hold preventative detainees until 1935
where it became a borstal for young
offenders, it switched back to holding
convicts during World War two and then
returned to being a borstal in 1946
During the 1950's it briefly held
corrective trainees before being
transitioned to a Category C prison.
During the 1970s the area of the prison
was nearly doubled the expanded area
housed a couple of new wings which were
opened on the 1st of July in 1976 and a
series of workshops. Throughout the years
the prison offered many educational and
training programs for inmates and
these included electronic repairs
construction industry textiles as well
as the ability to work on a working farm.
In 2008 it was announced that Camp Hill
would be merged with the other two
Island prisons Parkhurst & Albany to
form HMP Isle of Wight. HMP Isle of Wight
was officially launched on the 1st of
April 2009 with the three prisons being
combined into one category B jail with
the capacity to hold around 1,700
inmates
After its merger with the other two
prisons Camp Hill was criticised as having
relatively high levels of illicit drugs
and after being operational for over a
hundred and one years it was announced
in January of 2013 the Camp Hill would be
closing its doors as part of a national
cost-cutting measure, during the
following months the 467 serving
prisoners were transferred to 15 other
prison sites and on the 8th of March
2013 the last prisoner to serve a
sentence was escorted and released
off-site by the governor, at which point
he asked if he could turn out the lights.
Every building was then stripped and
cleaned with items being redistributed
refurbished or stored for possible
future use. The official closing ceremony
took place on the 19th of April and
ended with officers and other staff
marching up the prison one last time.
After multiple visits we had manage to
see most of what the huge site had to
offer, all under the cover of darkness, I
really wanted to capture some daytime
footage inside the prison as many of the
buildings were far too exposed to risk
turning lights on or using torches. Being
inside during the day was going to be
difficult, our multiple visits had
already identified that whilst the
guards didn't appear to do very much at
night the site was actively patrolled
during the daytime inside and out, in
addition to this the outside of the
prison was surrounded by fields and this
made the outer perimeter path a popular
dog-walking spot. Climbing over a 6m high fence during the day would
have been a terrible idea with pretty
much zero chance of getting in and out
undetected. The only realistic way of
being able to be inside in daylight
would be to spend the night and get out
early next morning. We picked a cellblock
and hung our hammocks up for the night,
we picked the block closest to the main
gate as the guards had already left some
of the lights on inside and if the main
gate was opened at any point we'd be
able to hear it.
We were up early the next morning before
first light so that we can get around
and see as much as possible before
making a swift exit. The site is still
currently owned by the Ministry of
Justice and is still technically
retained in reserve capacity, this means
that potentially it could be bought back
into service if there was a large
increase in the prison population,
although, as the government is actively
trying to find buyers for the site it
seems quite unlikely that it will ever
reopen as detention facility.
Over the years there's been much talk of
the prison being redeveloped for a
number of projects; these include housing
and a potential relocation of the Isle
of Wight council headquarters.
Structurally the facility seems to be in
a good condition needing only a few
cosmetic touch-ups. Just before I
finalised this video the prison's
Minister expressed an interest to offer
Camp Hill to the IOW Council, at point
of making this video no decision had
been made about the location. Shortly
after we finished visiting the prison we
were tipped off that the old admin
building that once belonged to the farm
was accessible. There's almost no trace
of the working prison farm and from the
outside the admin building looked
relatively unassuming, however, once
inside we found that the building was
being used to store stacks of old
documents from Camp Hill. There were
filing cabinets and boxes filled with
old records
We found boxes of old Ordnance maps of
all three prisoner states and there were
even some signs from the old prison
After having spent several days inside
of a cleared out prison it was really
fascinating to be able to spend a few
hours looking through as many of the
records as we could as these gave much
more of an insight into daily inmate activity
 
This was a great explore, it was a bit
nerve-wracking at times but it was well
worth all of the planning. It is amazing
that we managed to get around and see
most things without getting detected, I
really hoped that the release of this
video doesn't negatively impact any of
the security guards working on the
prison, after all who would be stupid
enough to try and bust into a prison?
Often when something significant is
explored I'm asked if there's anything
left to see on the Island,
there is and I still have plenty of
videos held back waiting for the right
time to upload hopefully one day soon
I'll be able to share some of these with
you.
