Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority - Port Arthur Historic Site
Ports in Tasman

The port arthur historic site, located in the south-east of tasmania on the tasman peninsula, is a place to discover amazing stories and epic history. The site offers excellent visitor services, museum, restrooms, transport for those with limited mobility, a gift shop, including cafes, interpretation gallery and a visitor information centre. The port arthur historic site is a wonderful place to explore, with more than thirty historic buildings, ruins and restored gardens are spread about the 40 hectare site, in a parkland setting with avenues of european trees set amid wild and beautiful scenery and native forest. They can interact with the site in a range of ways, interpretation gallery, a convict study centre, museum displays, furnished houses, ranging from guided tours, through a variety of innovative interpretive techniques, as well as our new high-tech audio installation at the dockyard. Visitors are encouraged to discover that history and the many stories of the place. These pages offer details about what you can see and do when you do make the journey, so that your experience will be memorable, meaningful and enjoyable. Port arthur is a place that every australian, and all international visitors with a wish to understand more of australia and australians, should visit. It will stay with you long after you have departed. As you walk within the site, soldiers, personal stories of convicts, the powerful, free settlers and their families will reveal themselves to you. Port arthur's tale is told in many ways. But port arthur was much more than a prison. Remote, this was the perfect destination for hardened, with no chance of escape, harsh, repeat offenders. Port arthur was a key part of the colonial system of convict discipline. It offers extraordinary experiences and activities related to our heritage. The port arthur historic site, located in the south-east of tasmania on the tasman peninsula, is one of the most important cultural heritage sites in australia and the world. Every visitor receives a 36 page colour guide book (available in english, japanese, chinese, french or german).

It does not tolerate improper conduct by its employees, officers or members, or the taking of detrimental action against those who reach forward to show such conduct. To preserve and enhance the heritage values of our World Heritage convict sites and to share the stories of these places and the people connected to them. Unity: We work as one to achieve PAHSMA’s Purpose. Accountability: We retain ourselves, and each other, accountable for our actions and behaviors. People Matter: We admit and disclose respect to our people past, donate and future. Passion and Pride: We are committed to being world class.

Trail the history of Port Arthur, from timber camp, to a prison at the forefront of criminal reform methods, correct through to a world class tourist destination. His melancholy fate doth plainly prove the delicate uncertainty of human life. I contemplated the naked figures, faintly perceptible in the gloom, with feelings of horror. He was in a maximum vile state to pass from this world to another. Port Arthur was a busy industrial site with a large workshop complex. Port Arthur’s Dockyard was highly successful to its own detriment. Towards the final of its history, Port Arthur became a depot for the aging and infirm. The township of Carnarvon took over from the remains of the used prison. Each site in the Property represents a different aspect of the convict system and are the most significant examples in Australia’s history of forced migration. In 1842 a big flour mill and granary (later the Penitentiary) was begun, as healthy as the construction of a hospital. Numbers of children were also transported with their parents. From the very early days of settlement gangs of convicts cut timber from the bush surrounding the settlement. The saws of the convicts supplied a steady stream of building materials to fulfill the needs of works both on and off the peninsula. In 1841 the worn Assignment system was replaced by that of Probation. One probation station, Cascades, was unchanging with the primary focus of extracting timber from the north side of the peninsula. The tramways and log slides (long log lined channels which allowed timber to be slid down a hill) meant that the centipede gangs were no longer needed, enabling the convict gangs to cut timber further from the settlement. Sawpits were dotted throughout the hillsides surrounding Port Arthur, cutting the logs into smaller pieces of timber, which were then sent back to the main settlement by the tramway. At the settlement the timber was further cut up in the rowdy sawmill and saw pits. As at Cascades, the area had also been stripped of all its useful timber. Up until the closure of Port Arthur in 1877, the worn convicts were worn to cut firewood, but no longer did they cut down the big trees to feed the sawmill. His job was to produce security whenever co