Collingwood Stockade

In Carlton North, today a suburb of Melbourne, the Collingwood Stockade stood from 1853 to 1866, one of the region's four penal camps. Originally planned as a temporary wooden structure for sixty prisoners, the facility grew quickly and could house three hundred inmates by 1855. Prisoners had the chance to shorten their sentences by working in a nearby bluestone quarry or by attending educational classes and Sunday classes. The site was surrounded by what are now streets such as Newry Street and Princes Street.

After the camp closed, the prisoners were transferred to the new Pentridge Prison. From 1866, the grounds served as a lunatic asylum, which at first took in mentally ill prisoners and later also people with intellectual disabilities. With the opening of the Kew Asylum in 1872, the institution lost its independence and became a branch of Kew. In June 1873, the last patients were transferred to Kew, after which the site was handed over to the Department of Education.

Today the Collingwood Stockade no longer exists, but the site still bears traces of its history. Lee Street Primary School stands on the former grounds of the camp. One remarkable relic is a bluestone slab, believed to have come from the governor's building, that bears the initials of the first governor, Thomas Malcolm Smith. The Stockade Hotel on Nicholson Street also recalls the historical significance of the site.