Fremantle Gaol: Fremantle, AUSTRALIA

The Fremantle Gaol has such an interesting history... although I grew up nearby in Perth, I didn't really know that much about the place.

Unlike the Eastern States of Australia, Western Australia was settled by settlers... and not established as a penal colony... and so, that led to a bit of a labour shortage, as you didn't have a captive population to do all the hard work of establishing and building the essential infrastructure for the fledgling colony.

So, there was a request made to the colonial overlords, and convicts were sent out...and their first building was the building that would serve as their "home". The gaol!

But, if you look all around Perth and Fremantle, you start to see that the inmates did eventually build most of the large buildings that became the state's main infrastructure. Definitely an interesting place to visit with lots of tours throughout the day. There are different themed visits depending on what aspect of prison life you are interested in...

Interestingly enough, the place was in operation from the early colonial days right up until the late 20th century! Only just recently closing down and becoming an historical site.

The lime/sand stone of the walls were made from the underlying hill and quarry around the site... and this sort of material is relatively soft, and so it quite a bit of hard work to keep it well maintained... even when you don't have the residents trying to make holes in it!

Apparently, even the rats and mice would make short work of the walls... a tiny little cell, with a bucket for the waste...

Some of the cells have been restored to a replica of what you might have expected in the colonial days... albeit without the stench and grime...

When newcomers arrived, they would be segregated from the general population for a length of time... so that they would be temporarily immune to bad "influences"

Some of these areas were later repurposed for different uses... for instance, this became a library!

The Anglican church was the focal point of the Gaol... with the inmates symbolically facing the gates, a potential and hope for redemption.... or just a way of planning the next escape.

Interestingly enough, on one of the walls that were later painted over... well, one of the inmates turned out be quite the artist! This was only uncovered later when the place was being renovated.

Yep... don't be sick... if you did get sick, you were segregated away from the other healthy ones, and put in a room with other sick people.

Now the Catholic church was housed in a smaller wing of the Gaol. Catholicism wasn't the religion of the mother country, and the inmates and some of the administration had to petition to have an area set aside for their worship space.

.... and the outdoor training yard. You have no idea how hot this area was in the middle of summer when we visited! And this was right next door to the flogging posts...

... and the windowless solitary confinement. Really... several months in the darkness of one of these, and your mind would be close to being broken... if your health wasn't from the meagre reduced rations that you received.