8th US/ICOMOS International Symposium

Interpreting the Cultural Landscape Palimpsest at Port Arthur

PETER ROMEY
Director, Conservation & Infrastructure
Port Arthur Historic Site

OVERVIEW
Port Arthur was established in 1830 as a prison to cater for secondary offenders, the
incorrigibles and the intractables of the British penal system. It was deliberately placed
in one of the most remote corners of the empire – these men were never intended to
rejoin society, at least until the system was done with them. Known widely as a “hell on
earth”, the prison closed down in 1877, but has since morphed from a place of
punishment and hard labour to a township to a government-owned historic site and
popular tourist mecca.

Today, the visitor to Port Arthur is struck by the ruins and extant buildings that confirm
the romantic “gothic horror story” interpretation of history. The bucolic parkland in which
these elements are placed provides a pleasant and serene environment for picnics and
a day spent exploring the site.

This impression is however misleading. Port Arthur is a much more complex place than
picturesque ruins in a romantic landscape would suggest. The place is a cultural
landscape where the low-maintenance lawns conceal the evidence of a complex overlay
of vanished buildings, agriculture, gardens, walls, fences and other lines of demarcation
that were the manifestations of a industrial prison complex and a township, a palimpsest
of changing uses and fabric.

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In this paper I will discuss the evolving philosophical context within which the Authority is
moving from a bricks and mortar approach to conservation towards one of revealing and
interpreting the complex cultural landscape of Port Arthur. I will also describe a number
of completed* and planned cultural landscape projects, and how these projects
demonstrate that interpretive methodology.

Before I move on the discussion of what we are doing now to interpret the layered
history of Port Arthur, it is appropriate to consider a brief overview of that history:

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PORT ARTHUR

Port Arthur – A penal station from 1830-1877
Port Arthur was established as a secondary punishment station by a small group of
convicts and soldiers under the command of Dr. John Russell in September 1830.
By the late 1830’s Port Arthur had become the centre of an industrial enterprise that
included lime making, saw milling, ship building, coal mining, brick and pottery
manufacture, stone quarrying, leather tanning and agricultural production. Convict
labour was used to produce a vast array of goods and material for the young colony of
Van Diemen’s Land, from leather shoes to wooden ships of 300 tons. Virtually every
material necessary to sustain the settlement was produced on site.
Transportation to Van Diemens Land ceased in 1853. By the 1860’s Port Arthur was
increasingly occupied by sick and ageing convicts, lunatics and paupers. A Paupers
Mess was constructed in 1864 and an Asylum in 1868.
Port Arthur closed down in 1877. During the period of its operation approximately
12,500 sentences were served there – many prisoners served more than one sentence.
The primary cultural significance of the place is primarily (but not exclusively) a product
of this period of its history.

Early township & community – Banishing the “convict stain”

In the first decades of the 20th. century the mouldering remains of Tasmania’s convict
prisons and probation stations were commonly referred to as “blots on the landscape”, a
reminder of a sordid and unhappy past.
When the prison closed in 1877 Port Arthur was renamed Carnarvon, and the land was
sold to free settlers. Some buildings were pulled down and the materials used to
construct new buildings or sold for salvage.
By 1882 Carnarvon had developed into a small township with a Post Office, a cricket
club and school. The Asylum was converted into the Town Hall and the Parsonage
became the Post Office. With no proper road connection to Hobart, many of the
inhabitants of the Tasman peninsula were born, lived and died with little contact with the
world beyond.

A cultural tourism destination

Concurrently with the development of the settlement of Carnarvon, the site became
increasingly popular with tourists, who arrived by steamer from as far away as
Mebourne.
Former convicts and paupers who had been incarcerated at Port Arthur reinvented
themselves as guides, providing tourists with colorful stories about the place. Harry

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Winter was one who would take off his shirt and show the scars on his back for a shilling
a time.
Buildings from the convict period were converted into hotels and boarding houses to
cater for tourists who required accommodation for their trip to see the ruins. The
Commandant’s House became the Hotel Carnarvon in 1884, the Junior Medical Officer’s
House became the Hotel Arthur in the early 1920’s and the Magistrate’s Residence was
converted to a boarding house.

A new government bureaucracy

In the early years of the 20th. century concerns were expressed from many quarters
about the condition of the structures on the site. With State government assistance, in
1914 the first conscious foray into the mysterious world of “preservation” was
undertaken when the walls of the church were partially reconstructed and stabilised.
In 1915 the Tasmanian Scenery Preservation Board (SPB) was formed to identify sites
possessing “scenic or historic interest”, and to purchase such land in private ownership
for preservation. In 1916 the first sections of the Convict Church were reconstructed.
Beginning in 1918, land was gradually re-purchased to consolidate the historic site, and
to protect its historic and tourism value to Tasmania. This process has been ongoing
since that time, and the current authority has recently completed the purchase of the
timber St. David’s Church, the last remaining plot of land in private ownership on the
site.
Largely as a result of the growing tourist industry, and to refocus on its historical
importance as a convict site, Carnarvon was renamed Port Arthur in 1927.
During the Scenery Preservation Board administration and beyond, many of the timber
houses and other structures built during the Carnarvon township period were
demolished. These demolitions were apparently carried out because of a perceived
need to enhance the expectations of tourists by excluding the “non-convict” aspects of
life in Port Arthur.
In 1972 the National Parks and Wildlife service took over control of Port Arthur and a
number of other former convict sites in Tasmania from the Scenery Preservation Board.
Port Arthur has since 1987 been controlled by the Port Arthur Historic Site Management
Authority (PAHSMA). The Authority operates under its own act (the Port Arthur Historic
Site Management Authority Act 1987), and is funded primarily by the government of
Tasmania.

AN EVOLVING CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

Largely as a consequence of the historical phases outlined earlier, Port Arthur has been
since the late 19th century an evolving cultural landscape. A number of accidental and
intended events have caused what has at times been dramatic changes in the way the
place has presented itself to the visitor:
The fires of the 1890’s
Following its closure in 1877 Port Arthur initially changed little – until two major bushfires
swept through the settlement in 1895 and 1898. The fires destroyed or severely
damaged most of the major surviving structures from the convict period, including the
Penitentiary, the Asylum (recently converted into the Carnarvon Town Hall), the Model

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Prison and the Hospital. The iconic Convict Church had been destroyed in an earlier fire
in the 1880’s.
The result of these fires was that fairly intact (but derelict in some cases) buildings were
reduced to ruins, and in some cases were totally destroyed. Demolition rubble from the
fires was used to fill in old openings in the landscape such as convict-period sawpits.
Fence lines and other lines of demarcation that had survived from the 19th century prison
began to disappear.

New development
Throughout the Carnarvon and subsequent Port Arthur township period, houses, sheds,
orchards and other agricultural activities began to superimpose themselves over the
strict delineation of landuse established during the convict period. Later developments
were a consequence of increasing demands for visitor facilities, for example the Broad
Arrow Cafe which was constructed during the 1950’s and extended afterwards over the
remains of an extensive complex of overseers quarters. The final layer of this particular
palimpsest was laid down when a memorial garden and pool of reflection were
constructed around the ruins of the Broad Arrow Cafe to commemorate the tragic events
of April 1996.

A low maintenance landscape

Each of these layers did not totally obliterate the evidence of previous landuse, but
added to the perplexity faced by a visitor when attempting to interpret the site.
Throughout much of this time, the authority charged with its management (primarily the
Scenery Preservation Board) was underfunded and ill equipped for the purpose. What
funding that was available was expected to be used for the stabilisation of structures and
ruins, particularly to put them “in a condition to receive visitors”*, and which would then
allow for a charge to be levied. The landscape within which these structures and ruins
were placed took on an increasingly arcadian appearance - a soft, welcoming and low
maintenance setting for the more important bricks and mortar evidence of the convict
horror story. The historic complexity of the landscape was simplified and unified to
facilitate the use of lawnmowers.

SO WHAT HAS CHANGED?

Plans and funding
Following many years of funding insecurity, in 2000 the Tasmanian government
announced a funding package of $10m. over five years for conservation and
interpretation works at Port Arthur. In the same year the Port Arthur Historic Site
Conservation Plan was adopted by the PAHSMA Board. Based on the Australia
ICOMOS Burra Charter, the plan identifies the cultural values of the place and
establishes broad policies designed to conserve and reveal these values. It clearly
enunciates the fundamental obligation of the Authority when it states in the Synopsis
that “There is nothing more important about the future management of the PAHS than
the obligation to achieve its long term conservation”. The plan provides the basis for
both strategic and day to day decision making about conservation initiatives at Port
Arthur.
The plan also established a structure for a range of subsidiary plans, with the intention of
providing an increased level of strategic detail within each of the main areas of

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conservation activity. Most importantly, the plan hierarchy provides for the preparation
of a Landscape Management Plan – a ground breaking initiative for the Authority. The
plan recognises the cultural significance of the landscape of Port Arthur, and sets out
policies for its conservation and interpretation.
Cultural landscape policy
The Australia ICOMOS Burra Charter (1999 amendment) provides useful, if generic,
guidance:
• Article !5.4 (Change) - The contributions of all aspects of cultural significance of a
place should be respected. If a place includes fabric, uses, associations or
meanings of different periods, or different aspects of cultural significance,
emphasising or interpreting one period or aspect at the expense of another can
only be justified when what is left out, removed or diminished is of slight cultural
significance and that which is emphasised or interpreted is of much greater cultural
significance.
• Article 20.1 (Reconstruction) - Reconstruction is appropriate only where a place is
incomplete through damage or alteration, and only where there is sufficient
evidence to reproduce an earlier state of the fabric.
• Article 25 (Interpretation) - The cultural significance of many places is not readily
apparent, and should be explained by interpretation. Interpretation should
enhance understanding and enjoyment, and be culturally appropriate.
The Port Arthur Historic Site Conservation Plan 2000 is somewhat more specific:
• Policy 5.2 (Landscape) - Where existing intrusive elements are removed, former
landform and topography may be reconstructed, provided that there is sufficient
historical and archaeological evidence available. Where such evidence is not
available, the physical evidence of the altered landform should remain.
• Policy 5.5 (Built Elements) - Missing elements of original fabric may be
reconstructed where:
o Sufficient information is available (hypothetical reconstruction should not
occur); and
o Reconstruction is considered essential to the conservation of original fabric;
or
o Reconstruction is considered essential for operational purposes and is
reversible; or
o Reconstruction is required for interpretation purposes and is reversible.
The Port Arthur Historic Site Landscape Management Plan 2002 is probably the most
useful policy basis for determining how to best conserve and interpret the cultural
landscape of Port Arthur. The Key Policy Directions set out on the Executive Summary
are:
• Landscape interpretation will aim to enhance the understanding of the significance
of the Historic Site without over-simplification of the complexities of its historical and
contemporary meanings.
• Features which define the arrangement of space within the Historic Site are
important (eg. fences, paths, plantings). Where these have been lost,
consideration of their restoration or reconstruction is warranted.
• Because the Historic Site has been subjected to the loss of historic plant and built

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 fabric over time, and changing ideas about the presentation of historic buildings,
many significant structures within Mason Cove appear as though afloat within a
vast expanse of lawn. While viewed as picturesque by many visitors, this treatment
conflicts with and obscures significant meanings.
More detailed policies include the following:
• Policy 2.5 - Restore or reconstruct significant edges between landscape areas
within Mason Cove. Identify significant missing elements which once functioned to
organise the social, administrative and industrial use of space within Mason Cove.
Consider restoring and/or reconstructing these missing elements where this is
consistent with the conservation and interpretive objectives of the Historic Site, and
where there is adequate physical or documentary evidence to do so.
• Policy 10.1 - Establish and maintain a landscape setting for historic buildings and
ruins. In most cases, it is undesirable for historic buildings and ruins to be
presented as though ‘floating’ in a sea of lawn. This is usually the outcome of a
loss of plantings, paths, fences and hard landscaping fabric previously associated
with the building and its uses. The significance of each of these structures is
generally enhanced by the retention, restoration or reconstruction of their
immediate landscape setting, including paths, gardens, fences and the ‘footprints’
of former outbuildings.
• Policy 14.3 - Interpret significant physical and social boundaries. Physical
movement through the Historic Site should, as far as possible, communicate the
historically significant uses and definitions of space to visitors. The movement of
visitors through the landscape should aim to reflect and illuminate the significant
historical, social and physical demarcations, divisions and hierarchies of the
convict, township and later periods. Implementation of this policy will have
implications for the provision of visitor information, and also the provision of paths
and routes, fences, plantings, and interpretation of missing structures and site
features.
These plans however provide guidance – they do not provide solutions. The formulation
of a policy for the interpretation, and possibly reinstatement, of the cultural landscape of
Port Arthur is very much a work in progress.

CASE STUDIES
Nevertheless, with guaranteed funding for conservation works and the confidence
engendered by a credible suite of conservation policy documents, the Authority has
been able to give far greater consideration to the process of “drilling down” through the
arcadian landscape to show the complex historic layering of the site - understanding,
revealing and interpreting the cultural landscape palimpsest of Port Arthur.
Having proclaimed the merits of a righteous dogma, I will now turn to an examination of
a number of projects undertaken since the late 1990’s that demonstrate an increasing
preoccupation with the cultural landscape of Port Arthur, both as distinct elements and
as the curtillage for a range of extant structures:

Trentham
This project comprised the partial reinstatement of the domestic garden, outbuildings
and orchard of a humble c.1900 Carnarvon-period house. Ironically, the house and
garden had been constructed over the sites of a convict-period overseer’s hut and a

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Carnarvon-period local shop. Typically, the landscaping features many items salvaged
from the ruins of earlier structures by the family who lived there.

Most importantly, the project constituted a belated but significant acknowledgement of

the importance of all of the periods of European occupation at Port Arthur, not just that
of the convict establishment. The cluttered and personalised use of the external spaces
speaks of the prosaic lifestyles of the humble inhabitants.

Government Gardens
The Government Gardens project was undertaken in 2000-2001, although there had
been valuable work done in the precinct prior to that date (the central pathway and
fountain were already in place).
The gardens were originally commenced under the direction of Commandant Champ in
early 1846. In November of that year Champ wrote to his mother:
“I have made a good garden for myself in which I mean to collect all sorts of plants, and
have made a canal and erected a fountain. Some palace of the kind was much wanted
for the ladies of the settlement to walk in, and I believe my garden is pronounced quite
delightful.”
The garden was intended as an outdoor leisure space for the civil and military officials at
Port Arthur and their families. It was designed essentially as a promenade, based
around a network of intersecting paths bordered by narrow beds containing flowers and
a vast array of shrubs formed into topiaries. A stone fountain was the central element.
However, in 1877 the settlement closed, and in the 1890’s the gardens were subdivided
and sold off, the area becoming a hay paddock for many years. The major landscape
elements were removed and the paths were overlaid with soil and crops, but surprisingly
were not entirely destroyed. Fragments of the buried pathways survived, and would
ultimately provide the physical evidence necessary for the reconstruction of the precinct
in 2001.
The project reconstructed the layout of the Government Gardens as it was in 1858 when
the government surveyor Landers mapped the site. The central pathway leading to the
Government Cottage and the stone fountain had already been reinstated following an
archaeological excavation in 1989.
The project utilised an extensive research programme to put together a reliable historical
profile of the place, prior to the development of a plan for reconstruction. Historic
photographs, palynological soil analysis, geophysical remote sensing and exhaustive
archaeological investigations (over 60 trenches) were all utilised to establish the planting
species, the type and location of paths, fences and other landscape features originally
extant within the precinct.
The final layout retains the central path, fountain and plantings that have been
previously reinstated or survive from the 1840’s. Other pathways and garden beds have
been able to be authentically reinstated as a result of these investigations. The existing
arbor has been replaced by a more accurate reconstruction based on an exhaustive
analysis of photographic evidence.
Unfortunately no authoritative evidence survives for the form and construction of the
long demolished timber summerhouse, and so reconstruction has been limited to the
footprint which will provide for interpretative opportunities. Reconstructed fencing, also

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based on photographic evidence, extends around the boundaries of the gardens, and
select garden ornaments have also been reconstructed and reinstated.
Memorial Garden – Commemorating a tragedy
On April 28 1996 a lone gunman murdered 35 innocent people at and around the Port
Arthur Historic Site. The massacre represented the worst such tragedy in modern
Australian history, and added another layer to the complex layering of history at the site.

The majority of the deaths occurred in and around the former Broad Arrow Cafe, a
nondescript 1950’s building as a shop and cafe to service the needs of visitors to Port
Arthur. This event had extraordinary implications on Port Arthur, its workforce, and the
community of which it is a part.
The Broad Arrow Cafe had itself been built over the site of a number of buildings
associated with the convict establishment, comprising stone and timber workshops and
quarters for civil officers. At the rear of the site is a rock face which still bears the
evidence of quarrying during the convict period. The buildings were demolished during
the late 19th century and the cleared site was used for a number of purposes including
stockpiling structural timber.
The massacre occurred on 28 April 1996. Following the trial and conviction of the
perpetrator, the demolition of the Broad Arrow Cafe commenced in late 1996. However,
the demolition was then stopped because of pressure from a number of sources, based
on concerns that to obliterate the structure would be to deny the opportunity to create a
place in which society could commemorate and mourn the tragic events.
The ruins of the Broad Arrow Cafe are now the focus for a memorial garden and pool of
reflection, a place where the latest tragic episode in a history where the cultural
landscape bears evidence to changing landuses. In this case however, the enormity of
the events of 1996 has subsumed the significance of the earlier convict-period use of the
site.
Public Archaeology Tour
Special tours of the annual Summer Archaeological Programme diggings are run twice
daily throughout the summer at Port Arthur. The programme has been developed and
run by specialist archaeologists, with visitors being invited to get their hands dirty in the
impressive excavations at convict sawpits and other key locations. Each summer
thousands of visitors take the specialist tours, while many adults and children take to the
trowel.
Each of the Summer Programme excavation sites are also provided with signage to
explain to free ranging visitors the objective of each excavation, the history of that part of
the Site, and updated information information about the progress of the excavation.
It is increasingly clear that visitors to the Port Arthur Historic Site are not only interested
in encountering the obvious evidence of history, but also in witnessing conservation in
action. In particular, the realization that other layers of history survive below the well
manicured lawns is a revelation for visitors, and the programme is an increasingly
important part of how visitors begin to understand the complex story of Port Arthur.
CONCLUSIONS
Port Arthur has been a historic site in public ownership (to varying degrees) from 1916
until now, a period of 88 years. Even before 1916 visitors were coming to Port Arthur.
So it has been a place of cultural pilgrimage, a tourism “must see” for far longer than it

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was a prison.
At Port Arthur, as at other historic sites, decisions about what to conserve, how to
conserve it, and what stories should be told have often been determined by a populist
response to what the visitors wanted to see and hear. The bricks and mortar ruins and
extant buildings meet visitor expectations as evidence of the romantic “gothic horror
story” interpretation of history. Meanwhile, the low maintenance parkland in which they
are set is greatly appreciated by visitors and the local community alike, creating a
tension between its historic values and related interpretive potential and the social value
placed on it by its users.
The challenge for the Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority and similar sites
therefore is to reveal to visitors the complex layered history of the place without
compromising its cultural values – to avoid the “convict world” sort of reconstructions
that are seen as the solution in some places. I do not for a moment suggest that we
have the answers to the conundrum, and it would be simplistic to believe that
conservation plans and their ilk are a substitute for experience, expertise and good
judgement on the part of we humble managers. I do however believe that at Port Arthur
we have in place the planning and philosophical guidelines to help us make the right
decisions about the “what”, the “why” and the “how” – what we are dealing with, why is it
important, and how should we best present it to our visitors.

PETER ROMEY
Director, Conservation & Infrastructure
Port Arthur Historic Site

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