The Hay Gaol is of State significance for its research, archaeological and interpretive potential as a site or landscape of segregation, which capitalised on the already isolated geographic position of Hay to provide different forms of incarceration in different periods of history. For example, the design of the Gaol combines details reflecting Victorian attitudes towards punishment and detention with vernacular construction features such as locally made bricks. It also displays more recent details remaining from when the site was a girls' institution, including concrete patchwork paths laid by the girls and the laundry box used by the girls. The local history of the site to date has been well documented by the Hay Gaol Management Committee and the Hay Historical Society. Additional information about the site's past as a girls' institution is coming to light as survivors start to speak out and return to Hay. It is understood that an examination of government records relating to the site as a girls' institution, when they come available, will yield important information. Likewise a detailed examination of government records relating to the use of the site as an internment camp during World War II will also present new information. Future studies may chronicle the changes to the complex over time and the different ways in which the physical isolation of the town, surrounded by the Hay Plains, added to the segregation effects of the gaol..