Archaeologists in a central Tasmanian town have uncovered the footings of colonial-era solitary cells and gallows from the former Oatlands Gaol, which was buried under an old council swimming pool. The former penitentiary, decommissioned in the 1930s, was once a major correctional facility in Van Diemen's Land. The local archaeological team wants to restore the site as an open heritage attraction for public access.
00:00Underneath what was once a council pool at Oatlands, north of Hobart, a local heritage team has unearthed the previously hidden life of a colonial jail.
00:13The way I see it is, if it hadn't been turned into a pool, we probably would have lost the whole thing by now.
00:19Opened in 1837, this was once the largest regional jail in Tasmania.
00:25If you did something really terrible that needed a long sentence, you'd probably be sent to Port Arthur, but for say two years or under, you'd wind up here.
00:33It became a council jail in 1863 until much of the complex became neglected and was demolished in the 1930s.
00:42A gigantic reminder that we all came from convict roots and that's the one thing everyone really wanted to forget as quickly as possible.
00:52In the early 1950s, the rest of the yard was filled to house a council swimming pool.
00:58The Southern Midlands Council is overseeing work to restore what remains of the historic jail.
01:04So that would pretty much be that, which would be that.
01:08In a stroke of luck, the construction of the pool unintentionally avoided several key parts of the jail precinct, including the solitary and condemn cells, which were discovered this year.
01:20As you can see, these solitary cells were roughly one metre wide by about two metres long, making for quite an uncomfortable stay.
01:28You had a bucket for obvious reasons. You had basically a straw mattress, one blanket, a huge problem with fleas, as you can imagine, and you potentially could be in there 20 hours a day.
01:43The team uncovered the gallows in 2013.
01:47Oatlands, Launceston and Hobart were the only places where people could be executed.
01:51So we've excavated the foundations of where about 15 people were executed.
01:57And they're applying for permits to excavate the entire site so it can be open to the public.
02:03Yeah, just really retrieve a part of our history that's been buried for so long.
