HM Prison Spring Hill is a Category D men's

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...

, located in the village of

Grendon Underwood Grendon Underwood is a village and civil parish in west Buckinghamshire, England, near the border with Oxfordshire. The village sits between Woodham, Buckinghamshire, Woodham and Edgcott, near the Roman road Akeman Street (now part of the A41 roa ...

, in

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-eas ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. The prison is operated by

His Majesty's Prison Service His Majesty's Prison Service (HMPS) is a part of HM Prison and Probation Service (formerly the National Offender Management Service), which is the part of His Majesty's Government charged with managing most of the prisons within England and Wal ...

, and is jointly managed with HMP Grendon, which is situated next to Spring Hill.

History

Originally known as Grendon Hall, the building was constructed in 1872 as a family home. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

the site was initially used as a base for

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intellige ...

, and was then a training centre for the

Special Operations Executive The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...

. After the war, the site was converted by the Prison Service, and became the first

open prison An open prison (open jail) is any jail in which the prisoners are trusted to complete sentences with minimal supervision and perimeter security and are often not locked up in their prison cells. Prisoners may be permitted to take up employment w ...

in the United Kingdom in 1953. In April 2003, burglars broke into Spring Hill Prison, stealing £650 from a safe and taking valuable personal effects, including mobile phones, from inmates' lockers. In December 2007, after a colony of

sparrow Sparrow may refer to: Birds * Old World sparrows, family Passeridae * New World sparrows, family Passerellidae * two species in the Passerine family Estrildidae: ** Java sparrow ** Timor sparrow * Hedge sparrow, also known as the dunnock or hedg ...

s had settled at the

London Zoo London Zoo, also known as ZSL London Zoo or London Zoological Gardens is the world's oldest scientific zoo. It was opened in London on 27 April 1828, and was originally intended to be used as a collection for scientific study. In 1831 or 1832, ...

's Gorilla exhibit, inmates constructed ten bird boxes for the zoo to encourage the birds to breed and stay in the area.

The prison today

Spring Hill is a Category D open resettlement prison for male adults. Most of the prisoners held at Spring Hill are long-term inmates, transferred from other prisons for the last few years of their sentence. HMP Spring Hill offers a range of employment and education courses. There are also two vocational learning centres (in

Information Technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system ...

, and

Bricklaying Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called ''courses'' are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall. Bricks may be differentiated from blocks by s ...

). The education department has links with local colleges, offering opportunities for prisoners to attend college outside the prison on a full or part-time basis. In June 2018, HMP Spring Hill became the third prison in the world to host a

Parkrun Parkrun (stylised as parkrun) is a collection of 5K run, events for walkers, runners and volunteers that take place every Saturday morning at more than 2,000 locations in 23 countries across six continents. Junior Parkrun (stylised as junior p ...

, a weekly 5-kilometre running event that takes place at over 1,400 locations in 22 countries.

Notable former inmates

* Chris Atkins

References

External links

Ministry of Justice pages on Spring Hill
{{Prisons in South East England Spring Hill Spring Hill 1953 establishments in England Spring Hill