Step back in time to the harsh realities of early prison life. The judges at the Court of Great Sessions ordered the Denbighshire justices of the peace to build the first county House of Correction at Ruthin in 1654.
The House was built at the bottom of Clwyd Street on the same site as the present jail buildings. However conditions at the House of Correction deteriorated as it came to be used as a general place of detention. Inmates could expect long sentences for crimes which, by today's standards, would be deemed as petty offences.
