Allport Library & Museum of Fine Arts

Hobart


The State Library is home to this excellent collection of rare books on the Australia-Pacific region, as well as colonial paintings, antiques, photographs, manuscripts, decorative arts and furniture. Special exhibits get dusted off for display several times a year, and there are monthly talks and seminars. Marvellously nerdy and interesting.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Hobart attractions

1. Hadley's Gallery

0.2 MILES

An installation sponsored by the Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery is the Hadley's Gallery at Hadley's Orient Hotel. Inside is a fascinating display of 29…

2. St David's Cathedral

0.22 MILES

Hobart's city-centre cathedral (1823) looks a tad austere, but inside the mood is serene and architecturally uplifting. Duck inside and regain your…

3. Franklin Square

0.3 MILES

Encircling a statue of Sir John Franklin, Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land (aka Tasmania) from 1837–43, Franklin Sq is one of central Hobart's…

4. Town Hall

0.31 MILES

Duck your head into the fabulously lavish lobby of Hobart's stately Town Hall. It was built in 1864–66 in a style based on Rome’s famous Palazzo Farnese…

5. Hobart Real Tennis Club

0.31 MILES

Dating from 1875, this is one of only three such tennis courts in the southern hemisphere (the others are in Melbourne and Ballarat). Real (or ‘Royal’)…

6. Hobart Convict Penitentiary

0.33 MILES

The courtrooms, cells and gallows at 'the Tench' had a hellish reputation in the 1800s, and every convict in Tasmania passed through here. The barracks…

7. Theatre Royal

0.34 MILES

Hobart’s prestigious (and very precious) Theatre Royal has been host to bombastic thespians since 1837, and despite a major fire in 1984, it remains…

8. Maritime Museum of Tasmania

0.35 MILES

Highlighting shipwrecks, boat building, whaling and Hobart’s unbreakable bond with the sea, the Maritime Museum of Tasmania (out the back of the town hall…