Local lockups
There’s no need to commit a crime to get a first-hand look at our state’s penal system.
Here are four historic South Australian lockups you can visit without doing time.
1. Redruth Gaol, Burra
Maybe not something you’d promote on a souvenir T-shirt, but Redruth was the first South Australian Gaol outside of Adelaide.
Opened in 1856, the prison was home to up to 30 male and female inmates. When it closed in 1894 the prisoners were moved to Gladstone Gaol in the Clare Valley.
The gaol later became a girl’s reformatory until a riot in 1922 saw it permanently shut as a place of incarceration. In 1978 it had a brush with fame as a filming location for the Boer War movie Breaker Morant.
A list of the names, crimes and sentences of those who passed through the local court makes for fascinating reading, and opens a door to attitudes of the past.
Extracts from the journal of prison physician, Dr Mayne, suggest the mid-1800s wasn’t a time of precise medical diagnoses. Apart from a case of ‘lunatic from disuse of the brain,’ there was also the occasional bout of ‘pain inside’ recorded.
You can access Redruth with a Burra Heritage Passport.
2. Dry Creek Stockade, Walkley Heights
The original Yatala Labour Prison, known as the Stockade, was built in 1854 to house 25 inmates working at a stone quarry in Dry Creek, just north of the current prison site.
The stone was used for roadworks, the construction of government buildings, and to build a more substantial Yatala prison.
A train line for transporting the quarried stone ran from Dry Creek Station to Stockade Station, which is now the DIT Walkley Heights Depot. Stockade Station closed in 1961, but trains continued to run as far as Gepps Cross Abattoir until it closed in 1995. The rail alignment can be clearly seen on Google Maps.
Some of the 19th-century infrastructure still exists, including the guard towers, the blacksmith’s shop and the heavily graffitied powder magazine, where quarrying explosives were stored.
The site can be accessed via the 3.5km-long Dry Creek Linear Park, which runs from Walkleys Road to Bridge Road at Walkley Heights.
3. Melrose Courthouse, Police Station and lockup, Melrose
This former courthouse and police station is now the Melrose Heritage Museum. It’s full of exhibits, artefacts and audio-visual presentations relating to regional history, policing and judiciary, as well as stories of the local Nukunu people.
Head out the back to see historic farming machinery and the outdoor cells.
4. Adelaide Gaol, Adelaide
Opened in 1841, Adelaide Gaol closed its doors relatively recently in 1988, so the buildings are still in remarkably good nick.
The gaol is one of the two oldest public buildings in the state along with Government House.
In the mid-19th century, the prison’s facilities were probably considered reasonably comfortable, but they certainly didn’t meet modern gaol standards by the time it closed.
None of the cells were plumbed so inmates were issued with a bucket to be emptied each day. It wasn’t until the late 1970s that chemical Porta Potties were introduced, and these were emptied once a week, ‘except in an emergency’.
The original gaol design included four watchtowers but due to cost blowouts, only two towers were completed. In fact, the excessive money spent on building the prison helped drive the budding South Australian colony to near bankruptcy. This resulted in a change of governors and a legal dispute with the builders that dragged on for 20 years.
The more ornate of the towers, with its rooftop battlements, was used primarily as a residence for higher ranking employees, and later for storage. In 1958, the second tower assumed a more gruesome role as the hanging tower, the site of the last four executions in SA.
The gallows, trapdoor, trapdoor lever and waiting rooms – before and after – remain as they were when capital punishment was abolished in 1976.
There’s a lot to see at Adelaide Gaol including the cell blocks, exercise yards, canteen, and non-contact visitors’ centre, where prisoners would meet family members behind glass partitions.
Among the many fascinating displays, you’ll find lock-picking tools and keys fashioned by inmates out of everyday items.
RAA members receive a discount on an Adelaide Gaol Ghost Tour.
Please note: The Gaol Road access from Port Road to Adelaide Gaol is currently closed due to work on the new Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Access is now via Bonython Park.
Honourable mentions to Old Mount Gambier Gaol, which operated from 1866 to 1995 and is now an accommodation establishment, and Gladstone Gaol, which is currently closed to visitors while it undergoes a makeover.