whipping

Old Convict Cells, Gosford

from Powerhouse Museum

• 2 older comments, and then…
• beachcomber australia said:

  I cannot find any reference to this building in any of the online histories of Gosford, only a wooden lock-up. It is a very fine building of c.1820 Regency "Gothick" style - in a terrible state of repair at the time of this photo and hopefully still around. Perhaps it is not actually in Gosford, but somewhere like Windsor or Richmond? Anybody know?

• beachcomber australia said:

  @ PhMC - There should be a companion photo to this in the Tyrrell collection called "Old Convict Settlement, Gosford", and possibly others. Any chance of getting it digitized please? www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=29048&a... I found it here - www.slv.vic.gov.au/pictoria/gid/slv-pic-aab72980/1/b51599

• beachcomber australia said:

  Found it! From the Gosford City Council's website - History of Wyoming (North Gosford) - " The "Old Guard House" or "Garden House" A mystery building once stood in the vicinity of today's Glencoe Avenue. The narrow, squat, sandstone structure was locally known as the "Guard-house". Along with a large pine tree known as the "Whipping Tree", the local storytellers had convicts being regularly cruelly flogged and incarcerated in the "Guard House". Various theories exist as to just what use the "Guard House" was originally intended, but it is unlikely to have ever been used to imprison convicts. More likely, it was intended as a "Garden House" for Georgina Hely. Another theory was that the building was intended as a Chapel, at which the Hely family and estate workers could worship. The church-like windows and the look of the building when you imagine a steeple on it, makes this a distinct possibility. Unfortunately we will probably never know the original purpose of this building! it was demolished in 1918 by John W. Campbell. " Full story and another picture by Kerry a few feet to the right dated 1908 here - www.gosford.nsw.gov.au/library/local_history/Suburbs/docu...

• Gary Crockett said:

  Nice work beachcomber - Frederick Hely was Sydney's Principal Superintendent of Convicts throughout the 1820s and early 1830s who owned land in the Brisbane Waters area, which might explain the romantic allusion to the old convict days...see adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010491b.htm

• witty name said:

  Fascinating! I thought it was an elaborate mausoleum at first glance. This story reminds me of a bunch of abandoned, concrete bunkers in Central Massachusetts, used to incarcerate German POW's during WWII. None of them looked like this, however.