Iron lace

(Freo)

Nose to the bloody grindstone again today and anyways, the light's crap for local photos. Overcast again but the forecast was for not a drop of rain to fall. Bastards.



Private house once, most likely, and I'm pretty sure it housed a clutch of doctors for a few decades. Some sort of yoga thingy now.

Victorian Filligree (circa 1840 - c. 1890) again. Very nice. Deep shady verandas as well. Just the thing for before the Freo Doctor* comes in.

160 High Street, corner of Ellen Street. Coupla blocks from Bustling Downtown Freo.


* Freo Doctor. Sea breeze that comes ashore in Fremantle early afternoon.




Yer classic Freo red-and-white for the main colours of the building then the Federation (circa 1890 - c.1915) colours on the details.




There you go. Iron lace and a wooden valance. Don't say I don't spoil yer.

Embiggen it and tell me if you reckon those are sunflowers in the lace.




Point Street. Victorian Filligree (circa 1840 - c. 1890) this is. And in point of fact, this very row of terraces is in my Big Book of Australian Architecture as a classic example of the style. "Architect and [exact] date unknown" more's the pity.

And you see that blue car? I swear that's the same car parked in the photo in the book.




Look at that classic Victorian detail. All that missing is a couple of them urn thingies on the top there.



Embiggened version with clear detail

The lacy iron bits on the veranda and balcony are called, not surprisingly, iron lace. Well loved style then and now.

In the right top background you can see a wee snippet of the hideous highrise just a block away on Adelaide Street. I'll take a nice terrace over a highrise any day.


Water torture

Chained to yer desk today? Excellent photos of Ettalong Beach by Nelson at Flickr.

The long drop

(WARNING: This post contains photographs of a mechanism of legal execution.)


Embiggen

This is the gallows within the grounds of Fremantle Prison in Western Australia.

The prisoner was brought in through a door out of frame to the right of this picture, escorted by the chaplain and prison warders. He was made to stand on the closed platform of the gallows. The hangman and his assistant, the doctor and the prison governor came in through the second door, in the back right hand corner of the building. The total of people present in the building was thirteen, twelve and the prisoner.




Most hangings at Fremantle Prison were carried out on a Monday morning at 8AM.

The gallows building contains nothing else. It's a tiny building next to the small block of solitary confinement cells, almost unnoticeable in the maze of buildings within the prison walls.

Before the prisoner was brought in, the hangman and his assistant had to test the trapdoor to make sure it would open when the lever was pulled, make sure the rope wasn't stretchy, work out from the prisoner's weight and height how long to make the rope and a few other things.

There was no drawing the thing out. It was to be got over and done with carefully but fast. "Once everything was in place the event happened very quickly. The time from leaving the condemned cell in Solitary Confinement to the actual hanging was around 60 seconds." (Freo Prison website)

The chair was to support a prisoner too sick or too frightened to stand.

The rails were for the prison warders. They each hung onto a rail with one hand and onto the prisoner with the other, boxing him in to keep him from struggling while the noose was fitted about his neck.

There were no family members or press present, no witnesses other than the official ones and the minister of religion requested by the prisoner.

Around the rope of the noose is a sleeve of leather. It prevented rope burns on the neck of the hanged man. This was a consideration for the family of the prisoner. After the hanging was officially declared the body was handed over to the family outside the gates of the prison.



Embiggen

It is from the gallows the expression "the long drop" comes and this picture shows you just how long a drop it was. Thirteen feet from the platform (open in these pictures) to the floor below. Such a long drop is to help make the hanging quick.

After the drop the hangman and the doctor went down the thirteen steps into the pit and checked that the prisoner was fully dead. The last rites were then carried out by the chaplain or whatever minister of religion had been nominated by the prisoner.

The gallows building in Freo Prison was "only place of legal execution in Western Australia between 1888 and 1984. During that time 43 men and 1 woman were hanged there."

Every prisoner hanged was hanged for murder.


The only woman hanged at Fremantle was Martha Rendell. She was tried in 1908 and hanged on the 6th of October 1909. She was convicted of the murders of her children by "swabbing their throats with hydrochloric acid after they had complained of sore throats because she was jealous of the attention her husband gave them. Rendell protested her innocence to the last." (Freo Prison website)


Eric Edgar Cooke was the last person hanged at Freo Prison. They did him on the 26th of October 1964 and he's buried in an unmarked grave at Fremantle cemetery. Same cemetery where most of my family are buried.

Cooke was a serial killer. My Nana used to tell us horror stories about this guy when we were kids. In Perth in January 1963 there was a series of random shootings in the wee hours of the morning.

It was summer and people didn't lock their doors then apparently. Perth was considered a very safe place to live. On the hottest nights some people even slept out on their verandas. Cooke went round with a rifle and shot random strangers, most of them in their beds asleep. People were terrified and locksmiths were suddenly doing a roaring trade and politicians and police commissioners were hauled over the coals in the newspapers every day.

They caught him in November that year and tried him for a single murder. He confessed to more than eight more murders and five hit-and-runs. (ADB)


After Cooke, sentences for hanging were commuted to life imprisonment and no-one else was hanged in Western Australia. Capital punishment was taken off the WA law books in 1984. (Freo Prison website)


The last person hanged in Australia was Ronald Ryan in 1967. He was hanged in Pentridge in Victoria.

Ryan went straight after a bit of teenage petty theft but in his late twenties he got into debt gambling and started forging cheques. He was convicted but got a good behaviour bond instead of a stretch in the nick. But he kept offending and lead a break-and-enter gang turning over shops and factories. He was picked up again twice in the next few years and his missus divorced him while he was inside the second time.

In 1965 Ryan and another prisoner broke out of Pentridge nick and killed a warder in the process. They were picked up in 1966. It was Ryan who picked up the rifle and fired the shot and it was Ryan who was done for murder. The other guy got manslaughter.

Ryan was hanged at 8AM on the 3rd of February 1967 in Pentridge gaol. "Calm and composed on the scaffold, he addressed his last words to the hangman... 'God bless you. Whatever you do, do it quickly'. He was buried with Catholic rites in an unmarked grave in the grounds of Pentridge gaol." (ADB)

On the inside

(Freo Prison again. Loved that place.)



In the final year of the prison's life (1990) the prisoners were allowed to paint on their cell walls. These paintings area all prisoner art and it will come as no surprise to you that every single painting is of an outdoor scene.










These drawings are from the colonial period. In the post-colonial period the cell was used as a broom closet. The drawings were found when a patch of paint was accidentally knocked off. There's Perspex over the walls now to protect the drawings from the grubby paws of tourists.




The cell once housed a convict who had been trained as a commercial artist. 19th century commercial art training involved drawing certain classics over and over until you got them right.




There in his cell he drew from memory, using whatever he had that would make a mark. How he kept the drawings hidden is an unsolved mystery.


Doldrums

Went off yesterday for a end-of-Dr-Who-season barbie and got a wee bit smashed and sunburnt. Other than that I've been head down arse up since I got back working. Another long day of it tomorrow then there might be a day or two off.


Bungalow alert



For sale. Railway Street Woy Woy. Dunno if it's been been sold yet so be quick. And if you buy it then do evil renovations to it, I know where you live.

Freo Asylum

Yep, while I was in Freo I visited my father in the nut-house then I visited another nut-house just for the fun of it.



Fremantle Lunatic Asylum. Started, finished and used in July 1865, finished up as a nut-house when the last of the nutters where transferred to the Claremont Hospital for the Mentally Ill.

Built by the same convicts who built and lived in Freo Prison. Local limestome used again, architecture style Victorian Tudor/Dutch Colonial (circa 1840 - circa 1890). Same as the old Fremantle Boys School below.



Same architectural style, same convicts. Freo Boys is the one on the right.

It's on Adelaide Street in Freo, opposite the Catholic church, right in Freo.

Freo Boys was built in 1854 and finished up as a school in 1958, with the last of the students from there and the girls' school new door (Princess May) sent off to new John Curtin High School up the road. (John Curtin was named after Australia's wartime Prime Minister.)

Freo Boys was also requisitioned during the way, by the navy. Freo was felt to be under threat from the Japanese forces and the students of Freo Boys and Princess May were shipped off to schools in the suburbs.

Back to the Asylum

The first official nutters in Freo were ten convicts. They were shifted from the nick to Scot's Warehouse in November 1857. Can't get any info on Scot's Warehouse but ten bob says it was some old wreck of a building down near the harbour.

The Asylum was only used as a nut-house for 40 years. There was a couple of suspicious deaths in the Freo Asylum in the early 1900s and that seems to have been the catalyst for closing it down. A nice new building with a less forbidding name, the Claremont Hospital for the Mentally Ill, had been built in the suburbs and the nutters were all shifted there from 1905 to 1909.


Inner courtyard, Arts Centre half

1909 to the outbreak of WWII in 1939 the old Asylum was a homeless women's shelter. In the war it was the HQ of the American forces in Australia "during which time the majority of the complex fell into disrepair".


Back of the Arts Centre, used as the logo of the Fremantle Arts Centre Press

After the war it was used for this, that and the other until it restoration started in 1970. Since then it's been housing the Fremantle Museum & Arts Centre. They've got half each, with the old cell and the haunty bits being mainly in the museum's half.

Haunty bits

Someone called Scotty puts it succinctly: the "Old Fremantle Asylum [is] reputably haunted as fuck."

Mainly it's the old cell and an upstairs passageway in the museum part and the big painting studio upstairs in the arts centre part.

You go up this endless fucking staircase to get to the painting studio. Haunted Australia tells us the staircase induces feelings of dread in some people and the ghosts are a former inmate bunged in there by her husband for no good reason and a former warder.



The passageway is the territory of the former inmate. She's supposed to have jumped out of an upstairs window and killed herself after her baby was taken away from her.

When I was a wee thing rumour had it there was a poltergeist who moved stuff about in the storage room next to the studio. On a primary school excursion to the museum we were allowed into the old cell. Predictably, the door shut of its own accord and one poor bugger wet his pants. (I swear it wasn't me!)


Freo Museum
WA Register of Heritage Places
Publicly available records on the Freo Lunatic Asylum

This morning was shit for photos and pretty ordinary for walkies. This afternoon is shaping up nicely. Nice bit of wind and the sky's clear at the moment. It's s'posed to blow a gale. I'll be out in it pretending me balcony is the prow of the Titanic.

Back

The funeral was my grandmother's. She was 93 and went rather quickly and quietly. She would've been rather miffed about the quickly and quietly bit, she loved a good scene. But we filled the church to the roof with bright pink roses and sang Knees Up Mother Brown and howled into our hankies. She would've enjoyed that.

I loved her as much as my Gran but she was a strange bugger. She declared herself not racist but couldn't stand "bloody foreigners". She was also utterly convinced there were None Of Those* in our family but terrified I'd was turning into One Of Them and didn't dare mention it in case she tipped me over the edge. She was also convinced Liberace and Rock Hudson were straight.

Death seems to be stalking my family. It's all been a bit much frankly. Let's look at some photos instead.



In 1929 12 year olds Jim Dix and John Murton built two of these out of a bit of tin (galvanised iron) and launched them off Freo. They were going to paddle round from Howard Street to Fishermans Harbour.

But their boat-building skills weren't up to the job and a couple of hundred metres offshore, John's boat filled up and sank under him. He couldn't swim and when Jim tried to pull him into his boat, John panicked and nearly drowned them both. Jim got them back to shore somehow and they were found by passersby. John had swallowed a fair bit of water and spent a week in hospital and Jim got a certificate of merit from the Royal Humane Society of Australasia.

Maritime Museum at Freo Harbour.



A rather gloomy fish. Don't know why I like it but I do.


Embiggen

Man versus Moby. You'd want to be bloody well paid to go out in a boat that size to poke a whale with a harpoon.

Whalers' Tunnel post


* One Of Those is DOT Speak for a queer person.

Australia II

(Freo visit June 2007)



"Australia II," says Wiki, "bearing sail number KA6, represented the Royal Perth Yacht Club of Australia in its September 1983 challenge for the America's Cup. The defender, the New York Yacht Club, had held the cup since 1851, dominating challengers and sustaining the longest winning streak in sport."

She was stuffed into a corner down the back of the Maritime Museum. Good display (downstairs) with all kinds of info on her and the America's Cup and even on the kind of sails they used way back in 1870.



Thar she blows. The famous winged keel.

Winged keels provide better stability for a boat, by lowering its centre of gravity.



The trim on a sail refers to the amount of cloth of the sail opened up to the wind so a trimmer looks after the amount of trim. Can't find out what a sewerman is (thank fuck) or a grinder but there's three whatsits for raising and lowering sails and three crew down as "grinder" so chances are a grinder's a raiser and lowerer of sails. The bowman probably looks after the spinnaker which is the sail over the bow.

Australia II Crew, Race seven 1983 America's Cup:

John Bertrand - Skipper
Grant Simmer - Navigator
Hugh Treharne - Tactician
Colin Beashel - Mainsheet Trimmer
Skip Lissiman - Port Trimmer
Ken Judge - Starboard Trimmer
Peter Costello - Sewerman/Grinder
Brian Richardson - Grinder
Phil Smidmore - Mastman
John Longley - Grinder
Damian Fewster - Bowman



From the original 1870 (left) America's Cup yacht style to the Australia II in 1983 (middle) to the 2000 NZ entry Black Magic (right).

These drawings are in proportion to each other by the way. Shows how tall the yachts got in 130 years.



Our Prime Minister of the time, Bob Hawke, wore this jacket on TV when Australia won the America's Cup in 1983 and famously said "Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum."

Hawke could drink a yard of beer in one go, which is what you look for in a Prime Minister.

Orientation Day



Map of Bustling Downtown Freo.

1. Maritime Museum, where the Australia II is now.
2. Cicerello's and Success Harbour, formerly Fishermans Harbour.
3. HMAS Ovens, decommisioned submarine, outside the Maritime Museum.
4. Fremantle Town Hall.
5. Round House and Whalers' Tunnel, Arthur Head.


Boat of a different design



Pasha Bulker aground on Nobbys Beach Newcastle in June 2007, taken by Michael from Stockton Beach.

To the right of her you can see the tow cables stretching away to the tugs.



Pasha Bulker aground on Nobbys Beach Newcastle in June 2007, viewed from Stockton Beach. She ran aground during the June storms and was finally floated off (in one of 2007's great anti-climaxes) about a week ago.

Taken and emailed in by Michael. Ta mate.


Dark as buggery here this afternoon. Looks like it's going to piss down again. It's weird having rain in winter again after all the drought winters.

Cicerello's

(Freo visit June 2007)



Landmark of Freo, where the fish & chips are excellent and the seagulls plump and glossy.

Cicerello's used to be a big tin shed, a fish sorting shed with the fish&chip shop at the public side and the fish coming in the harbour side. Where the shop is now used to be a rather scruffy carpark and the shed was to the right of the photo.


Embiggen

Tourist boat coming in to dock. Working boats and pleasure boats in the background.

On the left you can see the end of one of the many jetties (green & white) and one of the statues (grey) celebrating the long history of the harbour as a working place.

Not far to the right of this photo is the shed in which the winged keel of the Australia II was made. Australia II won the 1983 America's Cup, much to the surprise and dismay of America's yachting fans. It lives in the Freo Maritime Museum now, a few hundred yards to the right of this photo. Gotta photo of it to post later this week.


Woy Woy Weather

Pissing down again all morning and yesterday as well. Not ideal walkies weather but I've hardly stirred outdoors since I got back anyways.

Return to sender

(Freo visit June 2007)



American WWII torpedo in the the Freo Maritime Museum’s lost & found.

Nah, not really. It was laying outside the building pointing the way to HMAS Ovens. The lost & found presumanly holds a couple of jumpers, a single thong and a set of house keys for somewhere in Tokyo.


Biggun

Didn't do the Ovens tour. Too buggered that day and couldn’t face clambering up into a narrow sub with a pack of excited sprogs and adults and donging my head on a bulkhead.

Virtual tour of the sub

Ovens is a decommissioned sub. She lives next to the Maritime Museum on Victoria Quay. The new Maritime Museum not the old one near Cicerello's. Look for the Port Authority tower or follow the CAT bus into the carpark.


Biggun

Inside the museum was a video on Ovens's last journey back to HMAS Platypus,the submarine dock in Neutral Bay in Sydney Harbour. A Sydney friend spends much of his spare time on his Neutral Bay balcony watching the sailors bending over.

The video was cool. Showed you the inside of the sub and what everyone does when they play war games against the Americans. Panic slightly was the answer in some cases and there was all that cool naval repeating of orders thing they do. At the end, when she steamed up Sydney Harbour under the Coathanger and into Platypus, the captain had a little cry and so did I.



Her conning tower with the flags of Australia, Pommyland and America flying over a list of subs "commemorating the sacrifices made by the Allied Submarines operating out of Fremantle...during World War II".

I swear some of those subs were named by Terry Pratchett: Croaker, Flasher, Paddle, Trout and Tapir. Isn't a tapir some sort of rubber-nosed creature of the African plains?


Quizzed

Another email with some interesting questions:

I found your blog This isn't Sydney and wondered if you could help.

I am moving the the Peninsula from Sydney and am keen to get a local's thoughts and insights into the area for interest.

Do you know of any blogs that give a unique insight into the area...?

Every blog gives a unique insight but This Isn't Sydney might be said to be a bit unique-er than the average.

(am not sure if you are a local - just presumed so from your blog)

I am.

... is Umina really full of troubled youths causing chaos...?

No. Most of the population is over 55. What few teenagers there are in Umina spend most of their time saying "I'm boooooored" and going up to Bloody Erina (Erina Fair). where they annoy the shopkeepers by making one hamburger last three hours and not picking up after themselves. Newspaper stories about troubled youth sell more newspapers.

is Ettalong a haven for retired couples...?

Yes.

... what is the community feeling like in the area...?

Not like Sydney. Slower, nicer, far less aggro.

...is the area progressing?

Depends on what you mean by progressing. If you mean does it now have an over-large edifice where the RSL used to be, then yes. We also have more coffee-shops than you can poke a tourist at.

It appears I'm turning into something of an agony column for prospective Woy Woyans.

I also get a lot of mail over at my Flickr page wanting to use a picture or three for non-commercial use (only if you ask nice) and so on, including one asking for some details about local churches for a fillum.


Weather report

Magnificent wind this morning and a lovely black sky came over. Then it sailed off up the coast. Look like it’s going to piss down up Newcastle way.

Floods & Bombings & Freo

(Photos from June 2007 visit to Fremantle)



Freo Town Hall. Sits at the corner of St. John's Square staring silently down High Street at the Round House.

Nice bit of Victorian Free Classical (circa 1840 - c. 1890) the Freo Town hall. Built in 1885 and "a free ensemble of various Renaissance elements" according to my Name That Building book.

The little black triangle below the clock is a black swan, which is the Western Australian state emblem.



Sail & Anchor. Well-known Freo pub, on South Terrace right across the road from the Freo Markets. Pop in for a gargle after yer lamb sandwich. Very handy.



On the corner of Cantonment Street and South Terrace, opposite the railway station.

International Month of Floods & Bombings

I went away for the weekend where there were no floods or bombs or newspapers. It was restful. Coming back was not. Dear Old Things wringing their hands with worry over their UK rellies and bloody politicians running round like headless chooks.

Bit of good news though. Pasha Bulker's been dragged off Nobby's at last.

Whalers' Tunnel

(Freo visit, June 2007)



Under the Round House there's an old whalers' tunnel. It's from way back in the 19th century when Freo had a whaling station.

From the sea side, looking through at a building on High Street. The Round Hose is on top to the left of the edge of this photo. (Map includes archaeological sites)

It was built by the Freo Whaling Company in 1837 or 38 for easy access to the town. Bathers Beach was the original port part of the town so that makes sense. Otherwise they would've had to lump stuff all the way up and over the cliff or round it.

"The Whalers' Tunnel was the first underground engineering project in Western Australia," one of the little history plaques says, "and the government provided engineering expertise and convict labour to build it.

Originally the tunnel was 3.6 metres high and 64 metres long. Quarrying of the western cliff [picture above] of Arthur Head has reduced this length to 46 metres. The limestone excavated during construction was used to build the whaling station jetty."



Same plaque:

"The much smaller 'Secret Tunnel', which can be seen branching from this tunnel, was constructed in 1938 to provide quick access from the Gunner's Cottage on the upper level to the Whalers' Tunnel, which was used as an air raid shelter in World War II.

Wrought iron gates were installed at the ends of the tunnel in the 1930s as part of an attempt to beautify the area."

A round house on a cliff with a secret tunnel! How very Biggles!



You can see the tunnel clearly in this circa 1850-69 photo. Above it is the wide shape of the Round House and the signal mast above it. The other buildings are listed on the map.



Looking across the railway tracks, through the tunnel and out to Gage Roads and the sea.

There's a mention of Australia's whaling industry in Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby Dick:
"That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia, was given to the enlightened world by the whaleman. After the first blunder-born discovery by a Dutchman, all other ships long shunned these shores as pestiferously barbarous; but the whale-ship touched there. The whale-ship is the true mother of that now mighty colony."

The Dutchman is either Willem Janszoon or Abel Tasman. The Dutch mapped a bit of the coastline of Australia around the 1600s-1700s, called it New Holland and buggered off home.

More history stuff:

"Arthur Head is a remnant coastal limestone cliff of wind blown sand on fossil coral reef.

For the Nyungar, it is associated with Waugal (who created the Swan River) and Walja (Eaglehawk).

Arthur Head was the landing place of the first [white] settlers of the Swan River Colony. Arthur Head is a significant heritage site where Fremantle and the Swan River Colony started and represents several post contact development themes including:
Maritime and port uses (1829-1850s, 1870s)
Whaling and boat building (1837-1860s)
Law and order (1830-1850s, 1870s)
Defence (1900s, 1930s-1940s) and
Industry (1880s-1920s).

The area was used as a maritime port, a whaling and boat building station, a centre for justice, a defence post and has had several industies.

Captain James Stirling, Henry William Reveley, Philip Snell-Chauncey, James Austin and Hilson Beasley are associated with the development of the area.

The map [below] indicates the existing sites associated with the many uses of Arthur Head Reserve."




(Go back to where you came from)

"EXISTING BUILDINGS [shaded]
1 Roundhouse, well and bakehouse (1831)
2 Whalers' Tunnel (1831)
3 Sea wall (c1873)
4 Kerosene store (1884)
5 Pilot's cottage No 9 (1904)
6 Pilot's cottage No 10 (1904)
7 Pilot's cottage No 11 (1904)
8 Pilot's cottage No 12 (1904)
9 Gunner's cottage (1904)
10 Gunner's cottage (1904)
11 Artificer's store (c1909)
12 Laboratory (c1912)
13 J Shed (c1912 - relocated from Victoria Quay c1968)
14 Secret tunnel (c1938; WWII)
15 Signal mast & timbeball (1986/88)
16 Toilet block

ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES [blue lines]
17 First courthouse (1835 - <1869)
18 Whalers' Jetty (c1837 - 1870s)
19 Tryworks (c1837 - 1900, 1930?)
20 Stationhouse (c1837 - >1887)
21 Cave stores (c1838 - c1887)
22 South Jetty (c1847 - 1929)
23 Scound lighthouse (1876 - 1903)
24 Magazine (c1850 - 1895)
25 Government cottage (c1850 - c1966)
26 Police Station complex (c1850 - 1895)
27 Second courthouse (1851 - 1903)
28 Mews boatshed (1856 - <1945)
29 Harbourmaster's house (<1869 - 1928)
30 Long Jetty (c1873-1921)
31 First lighthouse (c1850-c1903)
32 Lightkeeper's quarters (c1844 - 1904)
33 Mortuary (c1896 - 1922)
34 Time Ball (1900 - 1937)
35 Signal Station (c 1902 - 1929) & WWII Observation Post (c1929 - 1962/67)
36 Fruit shed (c1904 - 1974)
37 Power House (1905 - 1906)
38 Gun Emplacements (190 - 1966)
39 Gun Emplacements Base (Relocated c1967)
40 Signal Mast No.2 (c1905 - c1975)"

(Go back to where you came from)

The Round House

Freo was Manjaree, Nyoongar people's land, before it was a British settlement. The Swan River Colony started in 1829 with free settlers and the convicts started coming in 1850.



But the first permanent building was a prison anyways, built in 1830 to house local white crims.

They bunged it up on Arthur Head, a knob of high ground looking out to sea, over the mouth of the river and down to Cockburn Sound (Map).

Out the back they bunged up navigation lights and signalling. Near Arthur Head they built cottages for the harbour-master, the pilots (boat pilots) and the lighthouse-keeper.



The guards quarters above the entrance and office. The well in the foreground. If you look carefully through the entrance on the big version you can see a view down High Street to the pointy tower of the Town Hall.

When the convicts came in 1850 the Round House was too small to hold them and they were put to work building their own prison a couple of kilometres away. That was Fremantle Prison and it held convicts then crims until 1991.

(Go to the Ducktionary for the difference between convicts and crims.)



A cell (right), stocks (wooden thing) and yards for washing and so on. In the left foreground is the well supplying the building with water. You can see them better in the big version.

Taken from the doorway of a cell and showing the width of the building minus 6-8 feet.

"...[T]he Round House was used as a police lock-up through until 1900. It then became the living quarters for the chief constable, his wife, and their ten children."

How fucking cool would it be living there as a kid? Only living in a lighthouse would top that for PCF (Playground Coolness Factor).



Taken from the back of the Round House, looking out to west.

Garden Island (left), Rotto (centre) with the corner of Success Harbour on the left (middle distance) and what must be the road to South Mole in the right foreground.

Garden Island is a naval base, HMAS Stirling.

Rotto is Rottnest Island, popular local tourist destination and former prison for Aboriginal prisoners. Success Harbour used to be Fishermans Harbour, before the America's Cup business way back in the eighties, and it's still a working harbour. No visit to Freo is complete without fish & chips from Cicerello's at Fishermans Harbour.

That's the Indian Ocean yer looking at, by the way. The next major landfall is South Africa.




The red dot at the mouth of the harbour is the Round House.

Back
Round House website

Magic spray

Torchwood started here the other night. It's on Ten, home of Big Bother, so there was some wanky promo for it which pissed me off no end and was pretty irrelevant.

But it's a Dr Who spin-off so it was rather fun. Particularly when that guy uses the Alien Randy Spray(TM) on some chick at the pub and she's snogging him then her boyfriend comes after her all aggro and the guy sprays him as well and then he snogs the guy and they all go off for some three-way action.

More please!