PAPAWHARE NGĀ PĀNUI •MAHI NOTICEBOARD • BUILDINGS AT WORK
UNLOCKING
potential Dunedin’s former prison is being transformed into a place that people want to enter – rather than leave
WORDS: JAMIE DOUGLAS • IMAGERY: ALAN DOVE
How’s this for an ironic twist in the passage of time? Today customers pay to get into the former Dunedin Prison, only to then experience the thrill of trying to break out of its imposing brick walls in just one hour. The escape-game experience is now being offered at the former prison on Castle Street in the
24 Hōtoke • Winter 2020
central city, but for the Dunedin Prison Charitable Trust and its chair Owen Graham, the ultimate goal is to turn the whole prison – rebranded as the Dunedin Gaol – into a total visitor experience; a place where people want to come and stay. And it seems it’s just a matter of time before the right keys will
be found to unlock the potential of the historic prison, given the vision and drive shown by the trust, funding support from various agencies and the input of skilled heritage advocates. All sorts of people have been guests of the penal institution, which was built in 1897 and designed by Government Architect John Campbell in the Queen Anne style. The front-facing administration wing has three supporting cell
blocks with an enclosed central courtyard. It makes for an ominous sight, inside and out, when visiting. The trust operates guided tours in which you learn about the likes of Agnes Inkster, locked up for bashing people with her umbrella at a Salvation Army street meeting in 1909; Sarah Fogo, sentenced to be hanged after stabbing her husband to death in 1900; incorrigible rogue Louis Godfrey, a skilled carver who in better times worked on First Church and Larnach Castle but did a 12-month lag in 1909 for being idle and disorderly; and David Bain, acquitted in 2009 on all charges after being convicted of five counts of murder in 1995, who spent time in cell number 37. It’s easy to get an insight into and a feel for what life was like inside, before the prison closed in 2007. Originally the cells that surrounded the central courtyard offered no protection from the elements, save for the locking of a heavy cell door. Conditions were bleak and basic, with toilets only introduced into cells in 2001, replacing buckets. The ablution areas were about the only progressive and worthwhile addition to the prison, which is now on the mend after years of neglect and heritage maltreatment. Owen is clearly excited at the progress of the trust in ensuring Dunedin Gaol is once again a key part of a Dunedin heritage precinct that includes the Law
Heritage New Zealand
