The Veszprém Dungeon Visitor Centre has opened in a renewed form, with a unique concept.The permanent exhibition entitled Man Behind Bars, rich in interactive elements, aims to enable visitors to form their own opinions on the issues addressed in the exhibition.
A dungeon existed in the castle of Veszprém around 1600’s, which had only one cell back then. According to the first records the dungeon in Veszprém existed around 1600’s, but had only one cell.
One hundred years later, the jail has expanded to at least three detention places, as it says in the records from 1753. When the castle of Veszprém stopped being a border fortress in 1702, as a consequence the act of 1753 called it a county jail. In 1810 an earthquake damaged the building, from 1887 it served as the building of the Royal Courthouse. This was demolished in 1905 and with the expansion of the belonging parcel a new courthouse building was built. The expansions, the extensions from different eras and their styles can be clearly seen from the jail-yard. The detainee areas in this classical dungeon, because of the architectural characteristics of the institution, are one floor under the entrance of the castle, they are located above each other in the depth. Thanks to this the building from the castle seems to have two floors, but from the Jókai Street we can see more floors. By the entrance, on the so called yard-level were the official and social places of the personnel. In those days the still existent capital punishments were transacted in a part of this yard, the last one was in the early 80’s.
The detainees have spent 23 hours a day in narrow, musty cells, capable for 2-4-8-12 people, where men, women and juveniles were separated.
The institution had a famous, or rather a notorious detainee during the 19th century, Jóska Savanyú at the beginning of his career has spent 8 months in the dungeon of Veszprém with the charge of armed vagrancy. Many still believe that Sobri was imprisoned here, but this is just an urban legend.
During the operation of the jail there were numerous attempts of escape, some of them were successful. One of them was like a movie scene, the detainee climbed down on the castle wall on tied bed sheets. All of the fugitives were captured without exception in a sort time.
Under the castle runs the Jókai (former Hosszú) street, the residents of Veszprém called the left side of the street the “speaker”, the detainees and their relatives, thanks to the good acoustics of the valley, could have talked about their daily problems.
In the year of the closure 152 detainees served their sentence in the dungeon. The convicts and their guardians have moved to a new modern building in 2003.
Summer opening hours:
Tuesday: closed
Wednesday-Monday: 09:00-19:00
