Lock "em" up Traditional Cache
inspicio: One or more of the following has occurred:
No response from the cache owner.
No cache to find or log to sign.
It has been more than 28 days since the last owner note.
As a result I am archiving this cache to keep from continually showing up in search lists and to prevent it from blocking other cache placements.
If you wish to repair/replace/make available the cache sometime in the near future, just contact a reviewer (by email), and assuming it still meets the current
guidelines, the reviewer will be happy to unarchive it.
Should you replace the cache after 28 days has passed please create a new cache listing so it can be reviewed as a new cache.
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(micro)
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Cache is a miro with log only.
This cache was formally created by Next! and recreated by “Coruze” in a slightly new location.
HM Prison Beechworth is located at the corner of Sydney Rd and Williams Road, Beechworth and was built on the site of Beechworth's first stockade between 1859 and 1864 at a cost of 47,000 pounds. The prison ceased to be operational in 2004.
The prison is subsequently sold to a private buyer/developer. Some areas are being sold for housing. Some buildings have been demolished but all of the old buildings are still standing.
The prison was built in stages between 1858 and 1864 using granite quarried on site. The Beechworth Gaol is one of nine Victorian prisons designed on the radiating 'panopticon' principle which had proved an efficient, cost-effective design for easy surveillance of prisoners by allowing guards to watch over a large area from a central observation point.
When opened in 1860, Beechworth provided single cells for 36 prisoners. Accommodation was doubled on the building's completion in 1864. The prison initially housed male and female prisoners, who were kept occupied with work of practical benefit to the town. Between 1918 and 1925 the prison closed due to lack of numbers, then operated as a reformatory for habitual male offenders between 1925 and 1951. It became a training prison for straight-sentence prisoners after 1951 until its closure in 2004
Features include blocks, observation hall, turnkey's quarters, gaoler's quarters, kitchen wing exterior, warder's quarters, watch towers, perimeter and division walls, the iron entrance gates, entrance court, and yards with the exception of the 1861 female yards which were built over in 1925. Original stairs, balustrades, architraves, skirting, doors and windows also survive. Slate roofing has been replaced with corrugated iron and louvered ventilators have been removed from cell block roofs.
The quarry is a significant feature in the grounds.
The prison significant in the early development of Beechworth. It is part of a major precinct of public buildings, and has links to numerous other buildings in Beechworth which used granite quarried and broken at the prison. It is also significance for its associations with the bushranger Ned Kelly and the Kelly story. Kelly served six months in the prison in1870-71 for assault and was held there during his committal trial for murder in 1880. It was also in Beechworth Prison that Kelly's mother, Ellen and two associates of the Kelly family served sentences in the late 1870's for the attempted murder of Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick.
Beechworth Gaol is further associated with Kelly as the place where twenty suspected Kelly sympathisers were held in 1879 in an attempt to limit support to the Kelly gang. The iron gates were installed at this time as it was feared that there might be an attempt to break the sympathisers out of the prison. The bushranger Harry Power was also imprisoned here. It was with Power that Kelly became involved in bushranging as a teenager and it was information supplied by Kelly to the police that eventuated in Power's arrest.
Beechworth Prison is architecturally significant as an outstanding example of a panopticon prison.
During its operation the Beechworth prison saw eight executions by hanging, they were: Patrick Sheehan Nov 6, 1865; John Kelly May 4, 1867; James Smith Nov 11, 1869; James Quinn Nov 4, 1871; James Smith May 12, 1873, Thomas Brady May 12, 1873; Thomas Hogan 1879 and Robert Rohan June 6, 1881.
A new prison has been built now known as Beechworth Correctional Centre which is a minimum security prison, located in Beechworth, Victoria, Australia. It was opened in January 2005.
You can now see inside with tours now being run.
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