Dark tourism certainly has its adherents, and they certainly do it well in this dark and forbidding Victorian citadel of punishment. Opened in 1829, it was expanded in 1867, yet ceased to be used as prison by 1878. It was later to be used for several decades as the town’s police station.

You can experience almost at first hand the brutal methods used here to keep the criminal fraternity in check, although many were between these walls for what we today would deem to be minor offences. In 1840 Gaynor Jones was imprisoned here for a month with hard labour for stealing a quart of milk.

Stand quietly in the condemned cell where Rowlands spent his last night, or in the punishment cell, completely dark and sound proof in order to effect the greatest possible psychological torture on its inmates. Whistling in the cells or emptying the bucket through the window was deemed to be sufficient misdemeanour to end up here.

View the whipping frames employed here, as well as the irons in which prisoners could be clapped, and the stretching racks.

Try your hand at the crank in one of the cells and imagine having to keep it up for 10,000 rotations a day.

It was a punishment that had no purpose other than to keep a prisoner occupied, but failure to comply with it fully would lead to meals being withdrawn.

Outside in the courtyard you can see the infamous treadmill onto which two or more prisoners were required to keep pace for hours on end, often suffering severe injuries should they falter just once. Also here in the courtyard you can see where male prisoners were made to break stones.

The gaol is a fascinating history piece of its period. It still has kitchen and laundry much as they’d have looked then, and separate women’s workroom, while the original chapel is virtually untouched. Many of the cells are furnished as they would have been originally, although some are fitted with toilets flushed by water from the wash basin.

That was luxury indeed for a place notorious for its brutality. Little wonder that parapsychologists believe the place is haunted by the spirits of dozens of desperate, wailing souls, so much so that the popular TV show Most Haunted was broadcast from here in January 2007. It’s certainly a chilling place that’ll send a shiver down your spine.

Step out of its dark corridors and head for the comfort of the Spinning Wheel Tearooms in nearby Buckley Place. The daily menu board will include popular staples such as steak and Guinness pie, homemade cottage pie or a traditional roast beef dinner, all for £6.95 each.

Contact Beaumris Gaol on 01248 810 921. More information can be found at www.angleseyhertiage.org.