Twenty five prisoners were sent to the Dry Creek site to work in the quarries in July 1854, living at night in an iron house. Dry Creek prison was officially declared a gaol on 10 August 1854 and an act then passed commuting sentences, formerly of transportation to New South Wales or Van Diemen's Land, into imprisonment with hard labour, though transport to the latter had been stopped by the Imperial Government in 1852. The Prison began as an iron house with surrounding palisade and became known as "The Stockade", a name retained in 2007 by the adjacent Stockade Botanical Park. Hare requested construction of a stone building, and by October 1854 this was completed using locally quarried bluestone, with accommodation for 60 prisoners.