Port Arthur
Port Arthur was established in 1830 first as a timber camp and went on to become a convict punishment station for serious repeat offenders. It controlled a network of outstations spread across the twin peninsula's - Forestier and Tasman. By 1840 over 2000 convicts, soldiers and civil staff lived here. It was a major industrial settlement producing ships, shoes, clothing, bells, furniture, worked stone, brooms and bricks.
The prison was closed in 1877, land was divided and sold to settlers and the township reinvited itself under the new name of Carnarvon. The settlement grew in and around the former penal site. With the prison's closure came many curious tourists and by the 1930s the area had three hotels and two museums. The strong interest in "Port Arthur" saw the reinstatement of that name, the development of an interpreted tourism site, and the removal of existing businesses to other areas.
Port Arthur Historic Site
As the Port Arthur Historic Site, it has become the premier tourism attraction in Tasmania. Outside of the site is the remainder of the town - a small residential area and services such as a General Store & Petrol Pump, Cafe, Restaurant, Real Estate and Laundromat and a variety of accommodation. Some residents believe that the original settlement should have remained a living town.
A visiting writer in 1856 describes the town: "you enter a shady grove along some lovely gardens. Before you stretches a short road with beautiful overhanging English lime trees; and as you proceed you fancy you are about to enter the suburban retreat of some London Banker. A lovely shrubbery bursts on your view, a pretty iron gate invites you to enter/ and before you, peeping through a long vista of English and native trees, appears the neatest church in the colony, of correct architecture, built of brown granite" (p65, C. Smith, Shadow over Tasmania).
See accommodation nearby the Port Arthur Historic Site
Check locations of all attractions on the interactive attractions map