History of the Berrima Gaol
If walls could talk…
Berrima Gaol has a chequered history with many past lives.
In the 1830s the NSW Surveyor General, Major Mitchell, originally planned for Berrima to be the administrative centre for the County of Camden with courts and support services. The plan evolved, after significant delays, to instead make the area an accommodation facility for travellers.
The Berrima Gaol was completed in 1844. Since then it has been re-invented and re-used in many different forms - including a gaol, freezing works, a munitions depot, an internment camp, occasionally a tourist attraction, in between periods as a gaol and a correctional centre.
With every iteration, the physical footprint of the site has been re-adapted to suit the purpose and budget of the times. Originally built in the colonial British round prison style, it survived fire, war, depression, extensions into a second floor and subsequent removal, and abandonment.
When the site was sold in 2022 the iconic red gate and arched entrance, the original gate, parts of the original sandstone wall, and an expertly maintained rose garden were the last recognisable elements of the original site. This is the tradition of adaptive re-use that inspires the vision for the site.
A brief history of adaptive re-use
When the gaol was expanded in 1866 capacity went from 90 to up to 160 prisoners, and in the years following, to 300. Conditions were harsh. Those with more than five years to serve faced 12 months of solitary confinement. When the castle-like gatehouse was built, inmates gave the gaol the nick-name, ‘The Castle of Despair’.
The site was leased to a freezing works in 1913, and reopened to accommodate German internees in 1915. The first Germans to arrive called it Ahnenschloss (Castle Foreboding), but over time their ingenuity turned the site into Berrima’s first tourist industry. They created pleasure gardens and a flotilla of canoes on the river attracting visitors to the village.
Summer recreation: German internees bring visitors to Berrima. (c) Berrima District Historical and Family History Society
From 1919 to 1939 the site was closed, briefly became a tourist attraction in the 1920s (above) and was then used as a munitions dump and document repository until 1942. Completely destroyed by a fire that left only the outer wall and entrance standing, it was rebuilt by prison labour and re-opened in 1949.
Tourist attraction: Visitors from …. in the 1920s. (c) Berrima District Historical and Family History Society
1979 to 2011 was the site’s longest stretch as a gaol. Governments of the time altered it to the needs and style of the times.
Aerial view of the Berrima Gaol site in the 1980s. (c) Berrima District Historical and Family History Society
In 2022, the site was sold, with potential to return it to Berrima’s roots as an accommodation facility for visitors, a hub for locals.