H.M. Pentridge Prison was built in 1850 and closed down officially in May 1997. Its nickname in the prison environment was "The Bluestone College".
Today, the prison is partially demolished to build some new housings. Main façade remains, and some detention camps.
During the local gold rush, criminality rates increase and a new prison is needed.
Many blue stones to break around here, so the prisoners can be kept busy, and also start to build the road from Melbourne to Sydney.
Due to an increasing number of prisoners, Pentridge is modernized around 1870.Surrounding walls are built, guard towers are raised. The capacity reaches around 650 prisoners and 100 employees.
Little by little the conditions get better. A monthly visit is allowed in 1945, and a fortnight letter. Several production sites are created inside the prison during the 60's.
In 1970 more than 1000 prisoners are detained, with new cool rights like: reading, acting, studying.
All the executions happened inside the prison. The last man killed was Ronald Ryan, in 1967. He was hung after having killed a guard during a prison escape. As a doubt remained and he might have been innocent, executions stopped.
After 1984, lots of scandals happen: strikes, riots, drugs... The privatization of the prisons a few years later does not help.
Finally, in 1997, Pentridge definitely closed down.
October 2005, Melbourne. Escaping from Pentridge was supposed to be difficult. What about the infiltration, 10 years after the prison is abandoned?
The site was still having active motion detectors and cameras. Security doors, welded or heavily locked bars.
Climbing the ramparts, security nets, rooftops, the attic and, a couple of hours later, finally inside!
The most total darkness, creepy atmosphere. Everything remains intact, cells furniture still here, prisoner's graffitis too.
The photos gathered here are probably not the best ones on this site, but this exploration is certainly the most intense one...
was recently lucky enough to be given a brief tour of a certain division(12/10/07)and it has been bought by an italian group who will be storing expensive wines there with 24 hour security,but hope to open a small part as a tourist attraction,and will be transforming the rest into fancy apartments and gardens with fountains and fine cafes ,quite a transformation,over 10 years they say they will be spending millions of dollars,and if you look from the outside you can see it is already underway,i wil be looking out for a chance to visit again in the near future,maybe they should open up more like the old melbourne jail
a lot of memories looking st your pics,i had a lot of friends that were there all of them good people in one way or another, its such a shame ! the blue stone motel was a huge part of history....they should have left it well enough alone !...great site
Hi, how can I download these photos?
im really dissapointed in seeing there's hardly anything left of pentridge i think it's wrong they shouldnt have been able to touch the building what ever happend to old melbourne the whole lot of old buildings seem to be getting knocked and houses built whats going to happen to melbourne's old history but great photo's guys did you's actually get permission to go in there i would have loved to have gone in there but doesnt look like ill get the chance now there's nothing really there anymore!!
I know, these photos are disappointing, their quality is quite bad. I will regret it for a long time... One year later, with my current photos skills, the results would be much better... I guess I will not have a second chance of going back there again...
i cant put into words how excited i was to see that you had explored pentridge. especially so recent. shame about the fact there isnt as many photos, but still, such a pleasure to get to see the ones you took. really, really, awesome.
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