Special Tours

New Zealand, Culture, History, Geography, Social Studies, Crime, Architecture, Justice.

We cater for all age groups and provide fun and educational tours to suit your requirements. Whether a Kiwi or from abroad, Napier Prison is perfect for your school, sports or interest group. If you wish to enquire about any of our tours please get in touch. We look forward to hearing from you!

School Tours

Napier Prison is proud to present its new junior programme.

We can provide hour-long group guided tours of the prison to suit you age group. Alternatively, we run a 2-hour Junior Programme featuring a historical tour, scavenger hunt, fingerprinting and games. Children can enter the cells, visit the hanging yard and hear about the secret tunnel, ghosts and lighthouse. Seated areas are provided for morning tea or lunch.

Feedback from recent participants has been exceptional! Everyone is raving about it!

If you wish to enquire about any of the tours, please get in touch. We look forward to hearing from you.

Guidelines for teachers

The tour starts outside the prison gates and is divided between the outside (main gate, graveyard, exercise yard) and inside (cells, remand cages). We give tours, rain or shine, so lots of umbrellas are available if needed! We accommodate for groups of up to 30 per tour guide and have plenty of staff to meet your needs. A minimum of one supervising adult per 10 children is required.

Contact us for details regarding reservations, discounts and parking.

"The introduction on the prison steps is valuable and sets the historic scene well. Both the tour guides today were outstanding and pitched material at a perfect level for 15year olds. They liked the sort of stories that have been taken out of the current education system - they liked the gang gossip, the stuff about the King-pin, the ghost stories....(more please), the hangings, and the bed decorations. For all, it was the highlight of their study trip, and all would recommend it again.......would be perfect for NZ history studies (level 1-3) This was a geography trip and although it was an extra add-on to the trip, students were impressed with the geographic message that came through with words like interaction, regional and accessibility being discussed. The focus of the day was actually the HB quake of '31, and the details of damage to the prison linked in well.

CONGRATULATIONS - We will be back. That was really interesting!"

Robyn Lambert.
HOD Geography, Karamu High School, Hastings, NZ