The Aussie prison that’s a tourism hotspot thanks to AC/DC’s Bon Scott

As I check in to my room at the Warders Hotel tucked away in the backstreets of Fremantle, an earworm in the form of AC/DC’s gritty hit Jailbreak also checks in – into my consciousness.

This hotel was once the permanent home for warders of the adjacent and notorious (aren’t they all?) Fremantle Prison, where a teenage Bon Scott, AC/DC’s short-lived but iconic lead singer, was once briefly an inmate.

Warders Hotel, part of what once was Fremantle Prison.

The sprawling decommissioned institution now serves as one of Western Australia’s most popular tourist attractions. Jailbreak, first released in 1976 and co-written by Scott, is said to have been inspired by Scott’s experience of the jail.

AC/DC’s Bon Scott’s brief stint as an inmate of Fremantle Prison has added to its tourism appeal.Credit: Getty Images

During my stay it occurs to me that while the erstwhile occupants of the now 23-room Warders Hotel must have appreciated the convenience of living close to work, they surely would have also felt a certain “I know where you live” unease that their workplace was perhaps a little too close to home. This would have been especially the case as the terraces also housed the jailers’ families.

Such convenience enjoyed, if that’s the word, by the warders, now makes for a perfect, and perfectly safe, base for my own short (jail) break here in Fremantle.

Nonetheless, the Scottish-born Bon Scott aside, the worst of the worst of WA’s offenders were incarcerated behind the limestone walls of the prison where, in January 1988, a major riot erupted.

A teenaged Bon Scott, AC/DC’s lead singer from 1974 to 1980, was held in Fremantle Prison.Credit: Alamy

Fifteen people, including prison officers, were taken hostage with part of the complex seriously damaged by a deliberately lit fire.

Years before that event, among the most heinous Fremantle Prison guests of her majesty was Eric Edgar Cooke, Perth’s infamous serial killer who operated in the late 1950s and early 1960s and formed the basis for author Robert Drewe’s book The Shark Net.

Briefly a resident (of the city, not the jail) and subsequently a fairly regular visitor to the historic port city of nearly 35,000 over the decades, I’ve always felt Fremantle truly makes Perth, rather than the opposite being the case.

Fremantle is to Perth what Geelong is to Melbourne and Newcastle or Wollongong is to Sydney, except that it’s considerably closer to the West Australian capital than those far-flung cities on the opposite side of the continent.

Freo offers more than enough interest, too, to warrant a stay of as many as five days, with forays into Perth proper should you feel inclined.

Beyond its impressive crime and punishment quarter, the rest of Fremantle’s lively city centre – including the boho, architecturally magnificent High Street – is packed with restaurants, cafes, pubs and bars.

A room at Warders.

For decades overlooked and unloved, it wasn’t until the lead-up to Australia’s ill-fated 1987 America’s Cup yacht race defence that Fremantle’s value was reassessed, leading to a dramatic physical reinvigoration of what is among the world’s most outstanding and well-preserved 19th streetscapes.

Back at Warders – close to Fremantle Markets and the so-called cappuccino strip, a legacy of the port’s Italian immigrant heritage – the hotel was carefully fashioned by architects a few years ago from what was known as Warders’ Block W1.

The hotel’s part of a trio of Victorian Georgian-style two-storey limestone terraces built in 1851 to accommodate officers of the prison, which functioned from the early 1850s to the early 1990s.

The prison, like the National Heritage hotel, is remarkably intact and preserved, from its imposing gatehouse entrance to its eerie gallows, where Cooke was hanged in 1964 for the murders of at least eight Perth citizens.

Prison officers in the early years.Credit: Alamy

Despite being afforded subsidised accommodation within walking distance of their workplace, the early convict-era warders, some drawn directly from the British penal system, were poorly remunerated and led working lives almost as regimented as the prisoners.

The prison is one of nearly a dozen 18th and 19th-century convict-era penal sites, stretching from as far as Norfolk Island in the South Pacific to Western Australia.

As many as 166,000 men, women and children were sent to Australia over 80 years between 1787 and 1868, condemned by British justice to transportation to the convict colonies.

Today, Warders Hotel forms part of the Convict Establishment, a unique precinct that links the Fremantle Prison, the Fremantle Courthouse (now an upmarket pub) and the former police station, all within metres of each other.

Hougoumont is a boutique hotel named after the last ship to transport convicts to Fremantle.

Proving that crime can pay, at least in the tourism context, the latter retired complex is being transformed into a 106-room accommodation facility by the owners of the Warders Hotel.

This new hotel, to be known as Garde, is due to open next year, but prospective guests will still have the option of staying in the former warder terraces and also the boutique Hougoumont Hotel, owned by the same group and named after the last ship to transport convicts to Fremantle.

Bon Scott, immortalised at the Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour.Credit: Alamy

Garde will be even closer to Fremantle Prison than the Warders Hotel, but for those interested in paying homage to Bon Scott, a revered son of Fremantle, you’ll need to venture a wee bit further afield. There’s a statue dedicated to Scott, who died in London aged 33, beside Fremantle Harbour, five minutes’ drive from the prison. His much-visited grave – a kind of Antipodean equivalent to the Paris grave of the Doors’ Jim Morrison – is at Fremantle Cemetery in Palmyra.

Having operated for more than a century after the end of the convict transportation era in 1886, Fremantle Prison’s fate was settled by the aforementioned 1988 riot, organised as a diversion for a planned escape, or, er, jailbreak. The subsequent trial of the perpetrators cost the WA government of the day nearly double the bill for the damage done to the hopelessly obsolete prison, which was closed three years later following the findings of a royal commission into the jail.

The prison’s residents are long gone, so a guest like me at the Warders Hotel, or the forthcoming Garde, can sleep much more peacefully, enjoying a host of mod-cons including espresso machines and milk frothers, no less. More than the original occupants ever had.

Sometime jailbird Bon Scott would likely be amazed by the improvement in standards, even though indications are that he much preferred a Scotch, and plenty of it, to a cappuccino.

The frequented grave of Ronald (Bon) Scott in Fremantle.Credit: Alamy

The details

Stay
Rooms at Warders start from $299 a night. Warders Hotel is at 19-29 Henderson Street (enter via Market Lane), Fremantle, WA. Phone [phone]. See wardershotel.com.au; gardehotel.com.au; hougoumonthotel.com

Tour
Fremantle Prison offers various themed tours including one that allows visitors to explore the labyrinth of prisoner-built tunnels and submerged passageways. See fremantleprison.com.au

Eat + drink
There’s no shortage of places to eat and drink in Fremantle with, as part of Warders Hotel, Emily Taylor, a sizeable pan-Asian restaurant named after an East India Company spice route ship. Gimlet is a small, near cell-sized bar just off the reception area which also serves as a cafe. Once open, Garde will feature its own restaurant and bar.

Fly
Qantas operates regular daily flights to and from Perth from major capitals. Fremantle is about 30 minutes’ drive south-west from Perth Airport; Perth is a similar distance by road and 50 minutes by train. See qantas.com

The writer was a guest of Tourism Western Australia and Qantas. See westernaustralia.com