Port Arthur Hotels

Port Arthur is a small town and former penal settlement on the Tasman Peninsula in Tasmania, the island state of Australia. The town is about one and a half hours drive from the state capital Hobart. The major attraction of Port Arthur is the Port Arthur Historic Site, the 40 hectare (100 acre) site of a former convict colony. Many highly recognisable ruins remain, including the penitentiary, the hospital, the insane asylum, and the church. Some portions of the site have been recreated but much is in the original condition. The Port Arthur Historic Site is Australia's best known historical site from the convict era. Port Arthur was first established as a timber station in 1830, supporting the infant colony of Van Diemen's Land. It became the site of a major penal (prison) colony for male convicts from 1833, a place of secondary punishment for re-offenders, in the 19th century era of convict transportation to Van Diemen's Land (the former name of Tasmania). It very quickly gained a reputation as a "hell on earth". At its peak in the late 1840s, Port Arthur became a near self-sufficient settlement, driven by the labour of its tormented inmates. Ultimately, after a couple of decades of decline in the 1850s and 1860s, Port Arthur finally ended its days as a penal settlement in 1877. In 1996 Port Arthur Historic Site became the site of Australia's deadliest gun massacre when a single shooter opened fire on visitors, killing 35 people. Memorials to those who died can be found at the site.