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The Hyde Park Barracks Museum in Sydney is one of the most treasured historic monuments of the city. Serving for years as a convict barrack, the majestic sand stone structure stands as one of the most important remnants of the colonial past. The building constructed in 1818 is one of the best works of the architect Francis Greenway who himself had been a convict. For years, the barrack served as lodging for the male convicts exiled to Sydney for petty crimes. After the exile system ceased in 1840, the building had been a shelter for destitutes and immigrant women, and was later transformed into a government office. The building has now been restored into a museum to preserve the remains of the colonial rule. As the first convict barrack in the settlement, the building was a witness to some of the major changes in the condition of the Australian convicts, and the Hyde Park Barracks Museum stands as an authentic narrator of the convict system in Australia. For over three decades, the barrack has lodged around 1000 convicts everyday. The original structures and artifacts that are still preserved point out the daily lives of the prisoners who reeled for years in hapless living conditions. The museum stores documents, personal memoirs, and recollections of the convicts to hold up an engulfing history of the past century. The barracks had observed Sydney’s journey from an essentially convict settlement to a modern city that has shed its colonial past. It is this journey that the museum traces through its architecture and displays. The Hyde Park Museum is actually a museum which narrates its own history. Relaying the stories of the thousands of men and women it had once sheltered, the museum recreates the experience of the ones subjected to the torture. As the building changed its role as a home for various purposes, it brings out the changing attitude of the colonial government too. The building is particularly treasured by the Irish settlers of Australia. The museum ground has a monument to the Great Irish Famine, and has naturally become a common meeting ground for the Irish in the country. The museum is now maintained by the Historic Houses Trust which has revived the original structures to convey the reality. The huge Georgian building now has a gallery and soundscape to weave a sorry tale of injustice and pity. Big cut out drawings capture some of the convicts in various moods and postures and aptly conveys the conditions they were in. Many of the original structures like a dormitory have been restored to give it the original look. All these and more serve to transport the visitors to the past, and as one walks down the alley, he truly relives some moments from the colonial reign. The place even provides for guided tours for the ones who seek a better knowledge. The Hyde Park Barracks are open everyday from 9.30 in the morning till 5 in the evening. As it remains forever crowded with school children, the best time to visit the museum is during the weekends. Though attempts have been made to bring down the building, it still stands as one of the best specimens of Australia’s colonial past, and the museum preserves an indispensable part of the settlement’s history.
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