Media Releases

A New Visitor Experience Opens August 2008

A new experience will be available to visitors at the Port Arthur Historic Site when the first stage of a decade-long project to conserve and reinterpret the Separate Prison is completed in August (2008).

Separation of Sinners
The Separate Prison is one Port Arthur’s most significant structures. Built in 1849 high isolating brick walls confined convicts to a silent and solitary fate.

Upon entering the Prison each convict was allocated a number. It was their new identity. Names were no longer spoken. Each prisoner spent 23 hours of every day in a small cell. Furnishings were limited to a small table, stool, bedding roll, night soil bucket and corner shelves for spoons, cleaning kit and a Bible.

Inside this prison, completely sealed off from day-to-day life at the rest of Port Arthur, corridors were laid with mats and guards wore slippers so every noise could be heard. This system of imprisonment represents mid-19th century changes in ideas about reforming criminals. The emphasis moved from hard labour to isolation and sensory deprivation. In a quiet, orderly and deprived atmosphere it was thought prisoners would contemplate their sins and change their lives.

Outside the cell convicts were masked to prevent them from making contact with other inmates. For any misdemeanour they were locked in special punishment cells in total darkness and silence. This lasted from several hours to 30 days. Only bread and water was available to them.

New Experience
The Separate Prison was used until 1877.The recently completed works will result in a new and powerful experience for visitors. Upon entry, visitors will pass a wall on which the many rules of the Separate Prison are written. As visitors proceed, they will also hear those rules being read out, as they were to each convict imprisoned here.

Visitors will then pass into ‘A’ Wing where six reconstructed and refurnished cells will show how the convicts would have used them at different times of the day – when waking, sleeping, eating, or working.
As they move into an exercise yard, the reconstructed walls will enclose visitors; all they will see is the sky, imposing the sense of ‘being trapped’ as would have been experienced by those imprisoned.

Jo Lyngcoln is the conservation project manager for the Port Arthur Historic Site. “The prison’s physicality is daunting,” she says. “It’s based on the Pentonville system in Britain and the Separate Prison is important because it demonstrates the evolution of punishment worldwide.”

The Separate Prison has been a massive undertaking and yet, as ever, it is attention to the smallest details that will add considerably to the visitor experience. The bricks of the re-built perimeter wall are, for example, made to the dimensions of convict bricks and a range of specialised period fittings are being recreated to furnish the Prison. “Even people who have worked at Port Arthur for 20 years are expressing surprise. It’s an amazing experience,” says Ms Lyngcoln. “Visitors will get a far more layered understanding of Port Arthur.”

The project will be completed by July and is expected to be officially opened in August.

More information:
Andrew Ross, Marketing Manager
Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority
Phone: +613 6251 2365
www.portarthur.org.au
marketing@portarthur.org.au