Located not far from the Huangpu River on the North Bund in Shanghai, Tilanqiao Prison, built in 1901, has so many stories and rumors that local residents never get tired of talking about it.

These tales are becoming trendy conversation pieces once again, as the prison, dubbed the "No 1 prison in the Far East", will be repurposed following the relocation of inmates.

Having served for more than a century, most of the prison buildings there are squat, and the cells have no windows. All the cells are located on one side of a building, with the only windows located on the other side. There are two corridors in the middle.

The corridor close to the cells was used to distribute food and for prisoners to exercise. The other corridor was used for patrols.

"All the locks on the cell gates were built in and shipped from the United Kingdom. There are three ways to lock each gate from outside," said Shi Jinxiu, a police officer at the administrative office of Tilanqiao Prison.

"When there was a need for prison officers to lock all the inmates in their cells whenever any emergency happened, he just needed to run through the corridor and turn all the handles on the locks horizontal. It was a faster way to lock all the gates," she said.