Hyde Park Barracks Museum, Sydney

Hyde Park Barracks Museum, Sydney

The Hyde Park Barracks was the principal male convict barracks in New South Wales from 1819 until its closure in 1848.

The Hyde Park Barracks was the principal male convict barracks in New South Wales from 1819 until its closure in 1848. Now open to visitors as a museum, the brick building is a part of the UNESCO World Heritage List of 11 Australian Convict Sites recognized for illustrating 'the way in which conventional forced labour and national prison systems were transformed, in major European nations in the 18th and 19th centuries, into a system of deportation and forced labour forming part of the British Empire’s vast colonial project'.

Designed by convict architect Francis Greenway, the 3-storey building had a capacity for 800 inmates at a time. Each floor was divided into 4 rooms, and each room held around 70 persons. The walled complex also had a kitchen, bakery, cells, and soldiers' quarters. After the prison shut down, it was used as an Immigration Depot for single female immigrants seeking work as domestic servants, a female asylum from 1862 to 1886, and then as law courts and government offices from 1887 to 1979.

Learn about the lives of the convicts through videos, photographs, and other exhibits. Audio tours are available in English, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, French, Spanish, Italian and German. Guided tours are conducted twice a day. The convict bakehouse has been restored, and is operational as a bakery and café.