World's Strangest Prisons 

 

Cascades Female Factory, Tasmania, Australia  

Sure, Australia was essentially one big jail cell in the 19th century, but this prison in Tasmania’s capital city, Hobart, was one of the few for females only. In operation from 1828 to 1856, it was home to more than 5,000 female convicts and their children, many of whom died from poor hygiene, inadequate nutrition, and back-breaking work. What You’ll See: Check out the matron’s cottage (the only original building still standing) and the memorial gardens, modeled after formal European gardens that Cascades’ inmates might once have enjoyed in a previous life.