Finally I came to the narrow mine shaft where you took a rickety wooden ladder down several feet into the mine proper where the prisoners were housed. It was no easy climb as the ladder was right against the wall of the mineshaft so there was little room for your toes on the ladder. You were barely able to hang onto the ladder.

When I finally reached the bottom of the ladder there were a few small electric lights for illumination. Everything was wet from the constant dripping of groundwater into the mine. Just off the ladder there was a wooden platform that was where the prisoners slept.

Sitting on the edge of the platform was a guide dressed in old prison garb. He offered to show me around the inside of the prison, so I accepted his offer. He also told me that many times there were furious battles at the head of the ladder between the prisoners and their gaolers who literally drove the prisoners down into the mine.

As we walked through the mine you could see off to the right of where we were the flooded mine tunnels with the water almost reaching into the dry portion of the mine. The highlight of the tour was the so-called “Sounding Room” that was excavated into a shape resembling a giant egg. It was here that a giant of a man who had been convicted of murder was kept chained to the wall. His chains were still there attached to the back wall of the chamber.

When we eventually got back to the ladder, I thanked him for the tour. However before I climbed back up the ladder we spent several minutes while he explained what life was like in the mine. One of the things he stressed was this was a place where the guards never came it was strictly the domain of the prisoners. He further went on to explain how some of the many escapes from this tomb were carried out.

I climbed up from this world, and back into the world of the living once again. As I was leaving Old Newgate Prison I stopped to thank the ticket agent for the wonderful tour guide they provided. The ticket agent was a bored teenager chewing gum who informed me they had no guide down in the mine.

The guide was so knowledgeable about the mine and the way the prisoners lived it seemed as though he was speaking as though he was one of the prisoners himself. Now I ask you, was my guide a ghost or what was he?