Approaching the southwest corner of The Settlement, the elevated area where all of the prisoners originally lived until their numbers became too great as convicts kept being imported. There were two sets of barracks, an eastern building and this, the western building. The top floors were considered "huts," individual apartments that were relatively large and open for prison cells. As I noted on the main page, miners got the best accommodations and were housed in the western huts seen here. I find it an interesting decision to leave the stones and bricks strewn throughout the site as they have been displaced over the years, instead of making any effort to rebuild using the original materials.


More views of the west face of The Settlement, allowing a sense of the buildings in relation to each other. Between the eastern and western buildings, there is a chapel on the south side that you will see in a moment, since religion was considered central to rehabilitation.


Some more photos of the south face of the western building, slowly melting down the sides of The Settlement. The brick building in the back left of the last photo was a later addition designed to house more convicts in a way that would keep them more isolated at night. That's discussed more on the "outside 'The Settlement'" page linked at bottom.


Final views of the western building from the east and north while standing in the main square. Look, they got a fireplace! Imagine trusting prisoners to build a fire? For that matter, imagine trusting prisoners to quarry and build their own gaols? I'm sure there was no incentive to hide an escape tunnel or loose stone.


The chapel was the nicest building, apparently quarried from only the whitest stone, leaving the random colours for the barracks. The chapel doubled as a school for any children of convicts or supervisory staff. I'm sure that there was no sharing of bad ideas.


A full perambulation of the eastern barracks. Below the top row of cells was the prison commissariat, and below that the solitary confinement. I should clarify that as the original solitary cells, because many more were built as the prison was expanded. In fact, there were solitary cells inside the underground mines for subterranean offences. Regular solitary suddenly seems okay.


A closeup of hew marks on the stones quarried and erected by prisoners for their own lodging. Interior stones such as these tended to be less finished than those on the exterior walls, so the commanders were paying attention to detail.


A couple of ruins east of The Settlement along the Norfolk Bay coastline. These don't even show up on the original plan so I don't know what function they served. Among buildings that no longer exist, I have a bakehouse or a store as potential options.


This appears to be from a former walkway along the shore, but could be part of another ruined building.


The only visible part of the wall erected to bring the main square to level ground above its surroundings. Part of the rest of the square appears to be supported on sloped fill without a wall. If it wasn't possible to walk around the wall to get into the square, I would understand the chains better. Are they to prevent further wear of the stone steps? Are they to prevent us injuring ourselves? Because the rest of the site is completely open to potential injury and wear of stones.


This was either a foot pathway or a tramway leading from The Settlement to the stone quarry and the inclined plane carrying coal down to waiting barges. Probably the former. The ruined building to the path's left is another one I can't identify, so let's pretend it's whichever of the bakehouse or store the other ruins weren't.


Finally, let's take a look inside the preserved cells of the eastern barracks. Not the most hospitable environs. There's some pretty good engineering here, but the collapsed roof in the last cell suggests that I shouldn't upgrade that adjective to "excellent."

Head outside "The Settlement"
Back to Coal Mines Historic Site main page

See more of the Tasman Peninsula
See more of Norfolk Bay
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