With its foreboding 5m-high walls, the old convict-era prison still dominates Fremantle. Daytime tour options include the Doing Time Tour taking in the kitchens, men's cells and solitary-confinement cells. The Great Escapes Tour recounts famous inmates and takes in the women's prison. Book ahead for the Torchlight Tour focusing on macabre aspects of the prison's history, and the 2½-hour Tunnels Tour which includes an underground boat ride and subterranean tunnels built by prisoners.
Entry to the gatehouse, including the Prison Gallery, gift shop and Convict Cafe is free. In 2010 its cultural status was recognised as part of the Australian Convict Sites entry on the Unesco World Heritage list.
The first convicts were made to build their own prison, constructing it from beautiful pale limestone dug out of the hill on which it was built. From 1855 to 1991, 350,000 people were incarcerated here, although the highest numbers held at any one time were 1200 men and 58 women. Of those, 43 men and one woman were executed on site, the last of which was serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke in 1964.
