History Adventures at the Barracks

Vacation Care Program

Join us for a one-of-a-kind museum experience, where kids will discover what life was for the convicts at the Hyde Park Barracks in a day of fun-filled, hands-on activities!

The children will have to bring all their excitement, because there is much for them to do.

Love Token Making

Love tokens are handmade coins that represent the heartbreak of convicts being separated from family and friends. In this activity, children use small mallets and letter presses to make their own love tokens on a large disk, inspired by someone special in their lives.

Bricklaying

One of the main jobs that convicts staying at the barracks would have had to do was bricklaying. After being issued with convict shirts marked with the broad arrow, the group will be put to work in a brick laying gang, creating a room under the watchful eye of their overseer.

Archaeological Dig

Using brushes, sieves and spades, uncover artefacts from dig pits, just as archaeologists did at the Hyde Park Barracks.

Museum Tour and Barracks

Enter the Hyde Park Barracks and put yourselves in the footsteps of the convicts who walked these same halls 200 years ago. The groups will explore artefacts left behind by the barracks original inhabitants, and may even get a chance to rest inside the convict hammocks!