Fremantle Prison Tunnels

We also took a tunnel tour , armed and dangerous with hard hat , modelling the climbing gear which happened to put Jamy’s balls into his neck! we descended 20m down three sets of ladders to the underground tunnel system built by the inmates by hand in the dark with just a pick and shovel, in waist height water,, clambering though dark tunnels mostly bent over with your fellow tunnellers arse in ones face you got the idea very quickly how brutal this work was back then. The humidity was intense but the temp was a comfortable 20 degrees. We also got to paddle a two man boat though the narrow tunnels filled with water. On the ascent back up the three sets of ladders to the surface I quickly realised how much of an oompa lumper I felt hauling a dead weight to freedom and feared my new very painful , very long breads might actually be the death of me.

The tunnel system in Fremantle Prison was built by prisoners to provide the prison and later the town of Fremantle with a supply of fresh water from an aquifer. The tunnels are approximately one kilometre (0.6 mi) long and connect to South Beach in South Fremantle.They were constructed in the 1850s when shafts were sunk into the limestone bedrock to provide fresh water for the prison.The tunnels were closed in 1910, although the groundwater continued to be used for the prison's gardens.

A tunnel network exists under the prison, including a one-kilometre (0.6 mi) connection to South Beach in South Fremantle. It was built by prisoners, but the purpose was not to enable escapes; their labour was used to provide the prison, and later the town of Fremantle, with a supply of fresh water. Guards in a gun tower adjacent to the tunnel entrance prevented any attempted escapes.
In 1852, during construction of the buildings, shafts were sunk into the limestone bedrock to provide the prison with fresh water from an aquifer. In 1874, the Fremantle's "Water House Well", used to supply ships, suffered storm damage. This prompted a tank to be installed at the prison, behind the main cell block, to offer the town an alternative water supply. Prisoners worked a pump to fill the tank, which was connected to the jetties through gravity-fed pipes.
Increasing demand led to the construction of a reservoir in 1876, from which water was drawn, still pumped by prisoners. From 1888 to 1894, additional wells were built, connected by a series of tunnels or horizontal drives[a] 20 metres (66 ft) under the north-east of the prison. A steam pump was implemented, which drew 68,000 litres (15,000 imperial gallons) per hour of water into the new East Reservoir. In 1896, a town reservoir was constructed on Swanbourne Street, fed from the prison by a triple expansion steam-driven pump which could take more than 4.5 million litres (1 million imperial gallons) per day from the prison tunnels. Prisoners, relieved of manual pumping, were employed to supply wood and stoke boilers.
The Metropolitan Sewerage & Water Supply authority took over control of the pumping station from 1901 until 1910, when both the prison and town were connected to Perth's metropolitan water supply.The tunnels were closed in 1910 but the groundwater continued to be used for the prison's gardens. In 1989, oil leaking from nearby tanks contaminated the water. The pollution was eventually cleared by 1996 through bioremediation.
Since the prison's closure the water supply system including the tunnels, were the subject of heritage studies, including a 2004 inspection by the Western Australia Maritime Museum. The tunnels were re-opened in mid-2005, and within one year the main shaft had been refurbished, including "installation of audio-visual equipment, railings and lighting as well as the removal of debris from the access shaft and tunnels, the creation of new steel platforms and ladders and the addition of extra limestone rocks in the tunnels to help lift users out of the water.Læs mere