United Kingdom · seat Nottingham

East Midlands prison guide: visits and locating a prisoner

The East Midlands covers Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Rutland. City locals sit beside a belt of training prisons. HMPPS decides the gate. There is no public list of prisoners. GOV.UK Find a prisoner works only with the person's consent.

East Midlands: how this area actually works

Nottingham and Leicester are the Victorian locals families meet after city courts. Lincoln serves its county. Derby's court traffic often leaves the city for a jail recorded elsewhere in the region, so do not assume a Derby arrest means a Derby gate. Gartree, in Leicestershire, still carries the reputation of a long-sentence prison. Whatton, in Nottinghamshire, holds men convicted of sexual offences, and visit rules there are tighter than at a standard local. Foston Hall is the women's closed prison in Derbyshire. Sudbury is the open prison in a Derbyshire village, not a city bus stop. Lowdham Grange, Ranby and Stocken fill out the training map.

Newer houses have changed the search terms. Five Wells and Fosse Way are recent East Midlands names that do not appear in old family advice. Morton Hall and North Sea Camp sit in Lincolnshire, the latter on the Wash near Boston, which is a coastal trip rather than a Nottingham afternoon. Onley and Rye Hill, toward Rugby, are often searched with the West Midlands by mistake. They belong in East Midlands planning when the record says so. Northamptonshire is the south edge of this region, not a suburb of Milton Keynes' Woodhill, which is filed with the South East.

A remand at Nottingham, Leicester or Lincoln can move within weeks to Gartree, Whatton, Sudbury or another English region entirely. Women's places concentrate at Foston Hall for a wide catchment. Open conditions at Sudbury or North Sea Camp are not closed conditions at Gartree. Category, programme and space are HMPPS decisions. This page groups prisons recorded as East Midlands. It is not a roll of names at Leicester, Nottingham or Lincoln, and it will not tell you who is on a landing. Nottingham, Leicester and Lincoln are separate first-night locals.

Finding someone held in East Midlands

Nobody can browse a list of people at Nottingham, Leicester, Lincoln, Gartree, Whatton, Foston Hall or Five Wells. Use GOV.UK Find a prisoner with the name and date of birth. HMPPS confirms a prison only if the prisoner agrees. A court day in Nottingham or Leicester is often too soon. Do not ring the gate and ask staff to search a name. A forum thread about Ranby or Lowdham Grange is not confirmation. Wait for the official record before you leave Derby.

Get the prison number before you send letters or money. Foston Hall is not Sudbury, though both are in Derbyshire. North Sea Camp is not Lincoln. Whatton is not Nottingham's local. If a later result says Birmingham, Oakwood or Leeds, the visit has left the East Midlands. The solicitor at the Crown Court is the usual source for the first allocation. Run the official search again after any transfer rumour. Five Wells and Fosse Way are newer names, not aliases for Leicester.

Visits and family practicalities

Book only when you are on the visitor list, using the national service and the GOV.UK page for that jail. Whatton's regime is not a Nottingham local visit. An open visit at Sudbury or North Sea Camp is not a closed visit at Gartree or Foston Hall. This page does not invent session times.

Identification is checked, and phones stay outside. A booking for Leicester will not admit you to Gartree. If the person moved to Five Wells, Fosse Way or out of the region overnight, the old slot is worthless. Re-check before you leave Derby, Lincoln or Nottingham station.

Getting around East Midlands

Nottingham, Leicester, Derby and Lincoln are the city stations. East Midlands Airport helps some international families and still leaves a ground transfer. Gartree and Whatton need a taxi after the train. North Sea Camp is a Boston and Freiston problem. Sudbury is a village, not a tram. Five Wells and Fosse Way follow the postcode on the official page, not an old blog pin.

Drivers use the M1, A1 and A46, then a last mile sat-nav underestimates. Parking at the city locals is poor. Rugby-edge houses are easy to approach from the M6 and easy to confuse with West Midlands gates. Use the establishment name on the visit confirmation before you pick a junction.

Prison guides in East Midlands

Facility articles for houses we have sourced in this nation or region. Empty coverage here is this site’s map, not proof that nobody is held in East Midlands.

Leicester · C (men)HMP Fosse WayFosse Way’s contracted Category C sits on the western edge of Leicester — a private trainer where the city local on Welford Road and Gartree’s high-security belt are different postcodes on the same map.Read the guide →Derby · Women’s closedHMP Foston HallFoston village hosts Foston Hall — a closed women’s prison between Derby and Uttoxeter where Drake Hall and Eastwood Park are the other Midlands women’s gates on family group chats.Read the guide →Market Harborough · B high security (men)HMP GartreeGartree’s high-security Category B holds long-sentence men in the Leicestershire countryside — a trainer associated with life and indeterminate terms, not Leicester’s Welford Road local.Read the guide →Aylesbury · B therapeutic (men)HMP GrendonGrendon Underwood hosts England’s therapeutic community prison — men who volunteer for group-based sentence work, miles from Bullingdon’s remand bustle and Woodhill’s high-security wire.Read the guide →Leicester · B local (men)HMP LeicesterLeicester prison is the small Victorian local on Welford Road, still inside the city, a jail you can overshoot on a bus because it looks like more brick in a brick city. Gartree (Category B trainer, Market Harborough) is a country drive.Read the guide →Lincoln · B local (men)HMP LincolnLincoln prison sits on Greetwell Road, a local jail in a tourist city. The cathedral is the postcard; this is the other hill. North Sea Camp (open, Boston) is a different Lincolnshire journey.Read the guide →Nottingham · B (men)HMP Lowdham GrangeLowdham Grange’s contracted Category B fills Nottinghamshire trainer space — a private site where Nottingham’s city local and Whatton’s specialist Category C are separate bookings along the A6097 corridor.Read the guide →Lincoln · Closed / IRC functions (check GOV.UK)HMP Morton HallSwinderby’s Morton Hall sits between Lincoln and Newark — a site known nationally for immigration detention and prison functions that shift with policy, not a substitute for Lincoln’s men’s local on Greetwell Road.Read the guide →Boston · D open (men)HMP North Sea CampFreiston Shore’s North Sea Camp is open custody on the Lincolnshire coast — Category D men with Boston’s flat farmland around them, while Lincoln’s closed local and Morton Hall’s policy-heavy site sit inland.Read the guide →Nottingham · B local (men)HMP NottinghamNottingham prison is on Perry Road in Sherwood, a men’s local that takes the city’s courts. Whatton (sex-offender trainer, Bingham) is a different establishment with a different visitors’ culture. “He’s in Nottingham” is not a postcode.Read the guide →Retford · C (men)HMP RanbyRanby’s Category C spreads across Nottinghamshire farmland near Retford — a trainer feeding the A1 corridor where Lincoln’s local and Lowdham’s contracted Category B are the names on the same transfer sheet.Read the guide →Oakham · C (men)HMP StockenStocken Hall Road cuts through Rutland’s Category C trainer — a small county’s main prison where Leicester’s Welford Road local and Gartree’s high-security belt are the Leicestershire names on upstream transfers.Read the guide →Sudbury · D open (men)HMP SudburySudbury’s open men live in Derbyshire countryside near Ashbourne — Category D resettlement where Foston Hall’s closed women and Dovegate’s contracted Category B are the closed names on the A50.Read the guide →Nottingham · C (men)HMP WhattonWhatton’s Category C holds specialist populations in Nottinghamshire countryside — a trainer associated with sex-offender work in public reporting, while Nottingham’s Perry Road local and Lowdham’s contracted Category B are everyday remand names.Read the guide →

Questions families actually ask

Can I look up East Midlands prisoners by name?
No. Nottingham, Leicester, Lincoln and the training jails have no public roll. GOV.UK Find a prisoner confirms a single location only with the prisoner's consent.
Is Foston Hall the same place as Sudbury?
No. Foston Hall is the women's closed prison in Derbyshire. Sudbury is an open prison in a Derbyshire village. They are different regimes and different journeys.
Will a Nottingham remand stay in the city?
Often at first. HMPPS can move the person to Gartree, Whatton, Lowdham Grange, Lincolnshire or another English region. Confirm the gate before you travel.

Other Nations and regions in United Kingdom

region · CambridgeEast of EnglandThe East of England is Essex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk. It is commuter country that still hides high-security and coastal jails. HMPPS runs them. There is no public inmate list. GOV.UK Find a prisoner confirms a prison only if the person consents.Open this area →nation · LondonEnglandEngland's prisons are run by HM Prison and Probation Service, not by city councils and not by Scotland or Northern Ireland. Locals in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Bristol take court cases; trainers and high-security sites often sit further away. There is no public inmate list. A location, when HMPPS gives one, needs the prisoner's consent.Open this area →region · LondonLondonLondon's prison cluster is the most searched part of the English estate: Victorian locals inside Greater London, plus fringe jails in Surrey that families still call London. HMPPS runs the system. There is no public list of who is inside. GOV.UK Find a prisoner confirms a gate only with the prisoner's consent.Open this area →region · Newcastle upon TyneNorth EastThe North East is Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne and Wear and the Tees valley. Durham and Frankland dominate searches. Newcastle is the travel hub, not the only gate. HMPPS runs the estate. There is no public inmate list, and Find a prisoner confirms a location only with consent.Open this area →region · ManchesterNorth WestThe North West is Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire, Lancashire and Cumbria. Manchester and Liverpool dominate family searches, then the map runs to Preston, Lancaster and the Cumbrian coast. HMPPS holds people here. There is no public inmate list. Consent is required before Find a prisoner will name a gate.Open this area →nation · BelfastNorthern IrelandNorthern Ireland's prisons are run by the Northern Ireland Prison Service, not by HMPPS and not by the Scottish Prison Service. The working estate families meet is Maghaberry, Magilligan and Hydebank Wood. NIPS does not publish a list of people in custody, and the England-and-Wales Find a prisoner form does not cover these gates.Open this area →nation · EdinburghScotlandScotland runs its own prisons through the Scottish Prison Service, under Scots law, not through HMPPS in England and Wales. Edinburgh and Glasgow dominate the Central Belt, but the estate reaches Aberdeen, Inverness and Dumfries. SPS does not publish a list of people in custody, and GOV.UK Find a prisoner does not cover these gates.Open this area →regionSouth EastThe South East, in prison geography, is the ring of Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and the Isle of Wight. It is not Greater London, even though London courts send people here. HMPPS holds them. There is no public inmate list. Find a prisoner on GOV.UK works only with consent.Open this area →region · BristolSouth WestThe South West is a long peninsula of locals and trainers: Bristol and Gloucestershire at one end, Devon, Cornwall and Dorset at the other. Distances are the whole story. HMPPS runs the estate. Nobody can Google a list of people in these prisons. Find a prisoner confirms a location only with consent.Open this area →nation · CardiffWalesCymruWales is a nation with its own language and Senedd, but its prisons sit in the England-and-Wales HMPPS estate, not in a separate Welsh prison service. Cardiff, Swansea, Bridgend and Wrexham are the places families actually mean. There is no public list of people in custody. GOV.UK Find a prisoner applies, and only with consent.Open this area →region · BirminghamWest MidlandsThe West Midlands is Birmingham and the Black Country, plus Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Shropshire. HMP Birmingham is the local people mean. Long Lartin is the high-security outlier in the Worcestershire fields. There is no public inmate list. Find a prisoner on GOV.UK needs the prisoner's consent.Open this area →region · LeedsYorkshireYorkshire's prison map runs from Leeds and Sheffield to Hull, York and the high-security houses at Wakefield and Full Sutton. HMPPS holds people here under England-and-Wales rules. There is no public inmate list. GOV.UK Find a prisoner confirms a location only with the prisoner's consent.Open this area →

All of United Kingdom →

Source

Confirm location, visits and hours on the official service. This site does not list who is in custody.

Official locatorGOV.UK Find a prisonerOpen official site →