Government Cottage (1854) was built next-door to the Church. Its sole purpose was to accommodate government officials and other important people when they visited Port Arthur.
The Church was constructed by convicts in 1836.
Inside the ruins
The Travelling Bells, including the oldest cast bells in Australia have been sited in a number of churches in Tasmania including the bell tower here at Port Arthur. Seven of the eight original bells have been recovered and placed here.
“Hand over your lupins!”
Entry includes a short cruise on the bay
Boys as young as 9 were at Port Arthur in another section across the bay at Point Puer.
Looking down Port Arthur Bay to Mount Brown….
..and dolerite columns below Arthurs’s Peak.
Isle of the Dead containing 1100 graves, 1000 of them unmarked.
View of the Guard House, Hospital and Penitentiary from the bay
Guard House attached to the Penitentiary.
Centaury
Clerk of Works house
Master Shipwright’s house
This dockyard was operational from 1834 to 1848. Over this period, 16 large decked vessels and around 150 small open boats were built here, additionally an unknown number of repair were performed. Many of the boats built here were 8-oared whaleboats – the ancestor of today’s surfboat – that were used by whalers and for general transport.
Pacific gull
Farm area – look at the size of those potato bags! I’ve finally met my mash.
The Penitentiary building was originally constructed as a flour mill and granary in 1845 in an effort towards a self-sustainable settlement. Grain was ground by either a water-powered mill or, when the water flow was inadequate, by convicts walking on a treadmill – one of the harshest punishments at Port Arthur. It was converted into a prison from 1854 to 1857 and used for a further 20 years before it closed. It was gutted by fire in 1897.
Cells in the Penitentiary – each cell, when lined with its plaster walls and wooden floor, measured approximately 1.35m x 2.1m
‘Each cell contains a bed … of sacking slip furnished with straps and hooks, which are inserted in rings in the wall.’
I thought the prison was empty….
Birds of a feather….Black-headed cormorant and Little pied cormorant.
Guard House and Tower
The view over the grounds from the Guard Tower.
The Commandant’s House
Inside the front door
The Commandant’s Office
From an 1861 Cookbook – a section about coffee, “…under certain circumstances, they can be dispensed with without disadvantage to the merely animal functions ..”
The kitchen in the Commandant’s House
The Hospital
The Lunatic Asylum from the Hospital
The Lunatic Asylum – we lunched in the cafe inside.
The Separate Prison – the notorious prison opened in 1848 where convicts endured a silent, lonely psychological torture with silence and wearing hoods. The British Empire was moving away from corporal punishment, instead forcing convicts to quietly reflect on their past deeds in isolation. The approach was dreamed up by reformists who believed physical punishment was hardening convicts, and making them more likely to re-offend. This led to serious mental health issues among the inmates.
Between the wings of cells
Cell wing in the Separate Prison
Inside a cell.
The happiest inmate – they are just not getting through to her.
This guy didn’t take kindly to the cell inspection.
…yet they allowed this unhinged individual to take the pulpit in the chapel!
View of the chapel from the pulpit. The prisoners were kept separate from each other in the boxed seating.
The exercise yards
Historic locks
Portraits of prisoners taken by one of the Superintendants.
“He was a smashing bloke…used to buy his mum flowers.”
Knackery Lad the escape horse was never a successful option.
Oh deer!
Honeyeater in The Gardens
The feral Blackbird, sadly the most prevalent bird we saw in Tasmania.
Cape Hauy in the late afternoon light.
We drove to Triabunna late in the day passing a number of convict era buildings like this church.
The highway hugged a river for a while.
View to Maria Island, our destination tomorrow.
Pub humour at Triabunna
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