The Court steps. We were allowed in through the posh entrance, not the low down door with "Country Gaol" carved over it.
All prisoners would have been stripped, scrubbed down in this bath and then had their heads shaved. I don't generally think about my relatives in the bath, but today it was a sobering thought.
This is one of the cells used to hold prisoners scheduled for transportation. There is a very high chance Henry was kept in this specific hole in the ground. He would have had to pay for the privilege, as well as for any bedding or even a pot for a toilet.
Knowing how much Henry was in and out of jail when he got to Australia, it's pretty much guaranteed he would have spent time here. This was one of the solitary confinement cells for troublesome prisoners. I went in the other one, it's pitch black and claustrophobic. Haunting to know I'm not the first one of the family to be in there. Only I got to stand there knowing I could leave any time I wanted.
In the dock. The first time I stood here I was 11, on a school trip, playing the prisoner in a mock trial. I was wearing my favourite cherry red jeans and a tam-o-shanter my Mammar brought back from her hollibobs in Scotland. I had no idea at the time I was standing in or very near to the same spot my 4x Great Grandad had stood many years before to receive his sentence of transportation to Australia.. I thought it was hilarious when they ‘sent me down’. I very much doubt Henry found his visit amusing.
The sign to my left is where the stairs lead down to the cells. Without a doubt Henry passed this was after his sentence was handed down. There was a bitingly cold wind blowing up those stairs. And why do I look possessed?
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