Two buildings of note at the stockade were the Prisoners' Mess and the Governor's House, which survived on the site well into the twentieth century and were later used by the Lee Street Primary School. The Prisoners' Mess, which incorporated a schoolroom and chapel for the inmates, was one of the earliest buildings of the stockade. It was constructed of timber and iron and was used as the school's shelter shed until the 1920s, when it had fallen in to such a state of disrepair it was demolished.¹⁷ The Governor's House, which comprised a parlour, three bedrooms, a small kitchen and outbuildings, later became the school principal's residence and was demolished in 1913 after it had also fallen into disrepair.¹⁸ A stone tablet from the Governor's House is now fixed to the wall of a school building. It reads:

Carved into the stone, circling this inscription, is what appears to be a convict's belt.

Stone tablet from Governor's house, now mounted on a wall of one of the buildings at Lee Street Primary School, North Calrton.
Photograph © Peter Barrett

Officers' Quarters were located to the west of the Governor's House. They were constructed of bluestone and the building was seven metres by five and a half metres, and three metres high; with a floor described as being level with the ground. Adjacent to this was another stone building, described as a cottage. A set of cells, completed in mid-1859, is of interest, as they were built underground. Their bluestone walls were discovered in works on the school site in recent decades. Prisoners in solitary confinement were housed in these, which had no light and were described by a former warder as akin to being 'buried alive'.¹⁹ Another large building at the stockade was the dormitory for Chinese prisoners.

Prison reforms led to the closure of Collingwood Stockade on 5 March 1866, when the remaining inmates were transferred to Pentridge. For its last six years it had a large Chinese prison population, and it seems the stockade was used as a depot for housing Chinese and non Anglo-Celtic prisoners. Of the total number of prisoners received in 1860, 218 were described as 'white' and 141 were described as 'black' (this included Chinese). At the time of closure, forty-two of the seventy-two inmates were Chinese.²⁰

Plan of the Collingwood Stockade Asylum shortly before it made way for the Lee Street Primary School.
PROV, VPRS 795/P0 Building Files: Primary Schools, Unit 696, School No. 1252 Carlton, Lee St

After the Collingwood Stockade closed, its buildings were converted into an asylum for the reception of 'lunatics' transferred from Melbourne gaols. This institution, the Collingwood Stockade Asylum, existed until 1873, when the site was converted to its current use as a primary school to cater for the children of the suburb that was developing around the former stockade site. Bluestone salvaged from stockade buildings was used for the footings and flaggings of the 1878 primary school building. This bluestone, and the stone tablet from the Governor's House are, sadly, the only visible physical remains of this significant part of Victoria's early prison history.²¹ They are a reminder of the hundreds of inmates held at the Collingwood Stockade, who, with their diverse range of cultural backgrounds, were a precursor to the rich array of backgrounds that make up the North Carlton community today.