Cascades Female Factory

The Cascades Female Factory operated from 1828 in a converted distillery in a damp valley below kunanyi, holding convict women assigned to labour, awaiting placement or under punishment. Conditions were severe: overcrowding, cold, and a nursery where infant mortality reached appalling levels. More than half of the convict women transported to Van Diemen's Land passed through it. In 2010 it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list as one of eleven Australian Convict Sites. Most of the buildings were demolished, so what remains is largely walls and foundations, interpreted through guided tours, an audio-visual introduction and the long-running dramatised performance Her Story.

History

After rooms in the Macquarie Street Gaol had served as a temporary female factory in the mid-1820s, the Cascades factory opened in 1828 to take women convicts away from the temptations of Hobart, and it operated until 1856. It stood on damp swampland, and overcrowding, poor sanitation and too little food and clothing brought high rates of disease and death. It is the only female factory whose surviving remains still show what such places were like; it was inscribed on the World Heritage List in July 2010 with ten other Australian convict sites, and after a design competition in 2018 and a $5 million visitor centre funded by the state and federal governments, it reopened in March 2022 with a new History and Interpretation Centre (Wikipedia, Cascades Female Factory).

What to look for

• The yard walls - the surviving perimeter and foundations of the factory.
• The interpretation - guided tours and audio-visual accounts of the women's lives.
• Her Story - the dramatised performance staged on the site.
• The setting - the cold damp valley chosen for the institution.

When to go

Year-round; tours and performances run to a daily schedule with fewer sessions in winter. The site is largely open air and cold in Hobart's winter. Booking ahead is advisable for performances.

Before you go

Very little of the building fabric survives, so the experience depends on interpretation rather than architecture. The history is grim, particularly regarding infant deaths, and the tours do not soften it. Entry and performances are charged separately.

Nearby

Hobart's centre is fifteen minutes away; kunanyi rises directly above.

Key facts