Hyde Park Barracks asks more questions than it answers. When archaeologists began to investigate the hidden nooks and crannies of the Barracks in the early 1980s they discovered over 80,000 objects discarded or hidden by its human occupants or stolen to build nests by its rodent population. These objects remind us of the convicts who were sentenced to time in the Barracks, the immigrant women who found a temporary home in it, the destitute and infirm women who hoped that it would be a haven, and the variety of public servants for whom it was a workplace.

Did some convicts suffer while others worked the system? What were the hopes and aspirations of the young women who risked their lives to cross the world for the promise of the new colony? And what of the old women who lived here or the government employees who worked here? We will never know who all of these people were but for many a small part of the lives they led has been left behind for us to investigate.

If you listen perhaps you can still hear their footsteps in the corridors.