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Hobart Convict Penitentiary

Penitentiary Chapel (1831), at site of Hobart's first gaol.

Getty Images/Lonely Planet Images

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 are all gone, but the red-brick chapel remains solidly intact. Visits are by tour only, and include a 40-minute film, Pandemonium, projected onto the walls of the chapel, where convicts sat for church – it held up to 1500 people and was built atop 36 solitary-confinement cells.

Book ahead for night-time ghost tours.

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