Port Arthur is a historic site that represents a 19th-century penal settlement and is now an open-air museum. Ruins include the huge penitentiary and the remaining shell of the Convict Church, which was built by inmates. Solitary confinement cells in the Separate Prison building were used to inflict mental punishment in place of floggings.
Our visit started with a “fun” activity where everyone got a playing card and had to find a matching drawer in a spacious room. The drawers contained stories of real people (convicts or not). We realised that many convicts that were serving here were quite young and got their sentences for petty crimes (sometimes as small as stealing bread).
The central building – the Penitentiary – was originally a flour mill and granary. When it became a prison, it was split in 3 stores: the lowest level contained the heavy-chained convicts, the lightly-chained were kept on the middle level and the upper level housed unchained inmates as a bunk-bed dorm. The building was burned down in a bush fire at the end of 19th century. Only the stone walls ruins are there now.
There is also a separate prison with solitary cells as well as penal confinements without any source of light. Misbehaving inmates were kept in total dark and silence for periods of different duration: from days to months. Some inmates kept coming back time after time…
Among other buildings that the complex consisted of is the ruins of a church which was built to accommodate up to a thousand of people at one time. It has never been consecrated so that multi-confessional services could be held and it was burned by the same bush fire as the penitentiary and was never rebuilt. There is a small Anglican chapel functioning nearby at the moment.
More info: https://portarthur.org.au
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