Aradale Mental Hospital | |
---|---|
Geography | |
Location | Ararat, Victoria, Australia |
Coordinates | 37°17′S142°56′E / 37.28°S 142.93°E |
Organisation | |
Type | Specialist |
Services | |
Emergency department | Not Applicable |
Beds | 900+ [1] |
Speciality | Psychiatric |
History | |
Opened | 1865 |
Closed | 1998 |
Links | |
Website | www |
Lists | Hospitals in Australia |
Other links | List of Australian psychiatric institutions |
Part of a series on the |
Paranormal |
---|
Aradale Mental Hospital was an Australian psychiatric hospital, located in Ararat, a rural city in south-west Victoria, Australia. Originally known as Ararat Lunatic Asylum, Aradale and its two sister asylums at Kew and Beechworth were commissioned to accommodate the growing number of 'lunatics' in the colony of Victoria. Construction began in 1864, and the guardhouses are listed as being built in 1866 though the list of patients extends as far back as the year before (1865). It was closed as an asylum in 1998 and in 2001 became a campus of the Melbourne Polytechnic (Previously known as NMIT) administered Melbourne Polytechnic's Ararat Training Centre.
The asylum was designed by G. W. Vivian and John James Clark (at this time Vivian's assistant), adapting Vivian's initial designs for a similar buildings in Kew and Beechworth. Building commenced at Kew (Kew Lunatic Asylum), Ararat and Beechworth (Beechworth Asylum) at roughly the same time, however Ararat was completed first. The building of Ararat was contracted to O'Grady, Glynn and O'Callaghan [2] and not patients (or "inmates" as they were called) as many erroneously believe. The asylum was built as a town within a town with its own market gardens, orchard, vineyards, piggery and other stock kept on the grounds. At its height it had over 500 staff and as it stands today the complex is made up of 63 buildings ranging in age from the original wings built in the 1860s to the modern forensic unit which was built in 1991 - only two years before the facility closed. Despite being closed as an asylum the facility continued to house female prisoners during the building/renovation of Dame Phyllis Frost Centre right up until its current management took over in 2001.[ citation needed ]
The asylum complex is an example of the E-plan barracks type lunatic asylums based on the model 1850s asylum in Colney Hatch, England. [3] : 32 Ararat is very similar in design to its sister asylums at Kew and Beechworth, however Ararat's use of linking bridges with an arcade on an arched gateways is unique. Kew is considered to be an example of Second Empire design, whereas Ararat [4] and Beechworth are considered more typically Italianate, though both styles have similar characteristics. The buildings are constructed from oversize bricks, which were then rendered with cement. [2] Two storeyed ward wings extend to each side, one for each sex. [3] The ward wings were surrounded by courtyards lined with iron columned verandas, [2]
Another distinctive feature of Ararat and other early Victorian asylums is the use of a variation on ha-ha walls around the patients' courtyards. [4] They consisted of a trench, one side of which was vertical and faced with stone or bricks, the other side sloped and turfed. From the inside, the walls presented a tall face to patients, preventing them from escaping, while from outside the walls looked low so as not to suggest imprisonment. [5]
In 1913 the landscape gardener Hugh Linaker was employed to layout the grounds of Mont Park. As landscape gardener for the State Lunacy Department, he commenced a program of landscape improvements and tree plantings at asylums in Victoria. Linaker was already familiar with the area, having previously laid out the grounds of Alexandra Park in Ararat. [2] Only a few remnants of the Linaker's plantings remain. [4]
In December 1886, the old gaol at Ararat was proclaimed as "J Ward" of the Ararat Asylum. It was to cater for those persons who were detained in any jail, reformatory or industrial school or other place of confinement, who appeared to be insane. The ward was not a separate institution in its own right and has continued to function as a division of the Ararat Mental Hospital. "J Ward" was always regarded as a temporary measure. [6]
A new institution was to be built at Sunbury for the retention of the criminally insane. However, when the building was nearing completion it was decided that it would house females only and males would remain at "J Ward". In May 1988, the then Minister for Health announced that "J Ward" was to be closed over the next year.
The decommissioning of Aradale began in the early 1990s, with patients transferred to community living and to other facilities. After December 1993, the Ararat Forensic Psychiatry Centre was the only remaining ward. In 1997, the remaining patients at AFPC were eventually transferred to Rosanna, until the new Thomas Embling Hospital in Fairfield was completed. [7]
In 2001, the Victorian Government provided $7.4 million to Melbourne Polytechnic to establish a campus of the Melbourne Polytechnic's Ararat Training Centre on the site of the hospital. 30 hectares of vineyard and 10 hectares of olive grove were planted in 2002, and an olive processing facility and winery were later built on site. The first planting at the Ararat campus was of 28 hectares of vines, which produced the first vintage in 2005. Since commencing training and research at Aradale in 2002, Melbourne Polytechnic also established a 250 tonne winery, a four hectare lavender farm, and extensive training facilities. The Polytechnic campus was established to provide a world-class wine and hospitality training facility in Victoria.
There are regular paranormal investigations at the hospital, and it is considered one of the most haunted locations in Victoria, possibly all of Australia. [8]
Ararat is a town in the Central Highlands region in Victoria, Australia, about 198 kilometres (120 mi) west of Melbourne, on the Western Highway on the eastern slopes of the Ararat Hills and Cemetery Creek valley between Victoria's Western District and the Wimmera. Its urban population according to 2021 census is 8,500 and services the region of 11,880 residents across the Rural City's boundaries. It is also the home of the 2018/19 GMGA Golf Championship Final.
Mont Park Asylum was a psychiatric hospital located in Macleod, an outer eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The hospital opened in 1912 and closed in the 1990s. Some of the former hospital buildings have since been used by the La Trobe University for administrative purposes.
J Ward originally the Ararat County Gaol, was an Australian prison, of the latter a psychiatric facility to house the criminally insane, located in Ararat, Victoria, Australia.
Lakeside Mental Hospital, originally known as Ballarat Asylum, later as Ballarat Hospital for the Insane and finally, before its closure, as Lakeside Psychiatric Hospital, was an Australian psychiatric hospital located in the suburb of Wendouree, the north-western fringe of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.
Fulbourn Hospital is a mental health facility located between the Cambridgeshire village of Fulbourn and the Cambridge city boundary at Cherry Hinton, about 5 miles (8 km) south-east of the city centre. It is managed by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. The Ida Darwin Hospital site is situated behind Fulbourn Hospital. It is run and managed by the same trust, with both hospitals sharing the same facilities and staff pool.
Melbourne Polytechnic, formerly NMIT, is an institute of higher education and vocational education (TAFE) located in Melbourne, Australia that has been operating since around 1910.
Collingwood Stockade was a penal stockade in modern-day Carlton North, Victoria, Australia. It was built in 1853 and was in use until 1866 when it was converted into an asylum, which then closed in 1873. The stockade no longer exists but the area has several reminders of it, including the Stockade Hotel on Nicholson Street and Lee St Primary School which is built on the site of the old stockade buildings.
Kew Lunatic Asylum is a decommissioned heritage-listed psychiatric hospital located between Princess Street and Yarra Boulevard in Kew, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Operational from 1871 to 1988, Kew Asylum was one of the largest asylums ever built in Australia. Later known as Willsmere, the complex of buildings were constructed between 1864 and 1872 to the design of architects G.W. Vivian and Frederick Kawerau of the Victorian Public Works Office to house the growing number of "lunatics", "inebriates", and "idiots" in the Colony of Victoria.
Beechworth Asylum, also known in later years as the Beechworth Hospital for the Insane and Mayday Hills Mental Hospital, is a decommissioned hospital located in Beechworth, a town of Victoria, Australia. Mayday Hills Lunatic Asylum was the second such Hospital to be built in Victoria, being one of the three largest. Mayday Hills Hospital closed in 1995, following 128 years of operation.
Yarra Bend Asylum was the first permanent institution established in Victoria that was devoted to the treatment of the mentally ill. It opened in 1848 as a ward of the Asylum at Tarban Creek in New South Wales. It was not officially called Yarra Bend Asylum until July 1851 when the Port Phillip District separated from the Colony of New South Wales. Prior to the establishment of Yarra Bend, lunatic patients had been kept in the District's gaols. Yarra Bend was proclaimed an Asylum under the provisions of the Lunacy Statute 1867 (No.309) in the Government Gazette in October 1867.
Royal Park Psychiatric Hospital, commonly known as Royal Park is a former Receiving House and Psychiatric Hospital located in Parkville. Operating for over 90 years, Royal Park Hospital was the first psychiatric hospital established in Victoria after the Lunacy Act of 1903, and was intended for patients with curable disorders. Built on the north-western edge of the 181 hectare parklands known as Royal Park, Royal Park Hospital along with Royal Melbourne Hospital, Royal Children's Hospital and Mount Royal formed the Parkville Hospital Precinct. Following the hospital's closure in the 1990s, several of the hospital's original buildings have been listed on the Victorian Heritage Register for their historic and architectural values.
Sunbury Lunatic Asylum was a 19th-century mental health facility known as a lunatic asylum, located in Sunbury, Victoria, Australia, first opened in October 1879.
Thomas Embling was a medical doctor from the United Kingdom who took an interest in the humane treatment of inmates in asylums before emigrating to Melbourne, Australia where he set about reforming the Yarra Bend Asylum. Later on Thomas Embling took up the cause of the gold miners in Eureka and had a successful career in the early parliament of Victoria.
St. Brendan's Hospital was a psychiatric facility located in the north Dublin suburb of Grangegorman. It formed part of the mental health services of Dublin North East with its catchment area being North West Dublin. It is now the site of a modern mental health facility known as the "Phoenix Care Centre". Since the official opening of the Richmond Lunatic Asylum in 1815 the Grangegorman site has continuously provided institutional facilities for the reception of the mentally ill until the present day. As such the Phoenix Care Centre represents the continuation of the oldest public psychiatric facility in Ireland.
Thomas Embling Hospital is a medium-security forensic mental health hospital located in Fairfield, a Melbourne suburb in Victoria, Australia. The facility is operated by the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health, known as Forensicare, who are responsible for providing adult forensic mental health services in Victoria.
Swanbourne Hospital is a heritage listed former mental hospital located in Mount Claremont, Western Australia. Built in 1904, it was the largest stand-alone psychiatric hospital in Western Australia for much of the twentieth century until its closure in September 1972. The hospital was originally known as Claremont Hospital for the Insane, Claremont Mental Hospital and Claremont Hospital. Following the closure of Claremont Hospital in 1972, the original 1904 section of the hospital functioned as the Swanbourne Hospital until 1985. The site was vacant from 1986, until renovated and reopened primarily as an aged care residence in 2018.
Graylands Hospital is Western Australia's largest mental health inpatient facility, and the only public stand-alone psychiatric teaching hospital. It is located on a 10-hectare (25-acre) site in Mount Claremont, in a suburb formerly known as Graylands, after which the hospital was named. The hospital has 178 beds, including 30 beds in the Frankland Centre, and 320 nurses on staff.
Glenside Hospital, as it was known from 1967, previously the Public Colonial Lunatic Asylum of South Australia, Parkside Lunatic Asylum and Parkside Mental Hospital, was a complex of buildings used as a psychiatric hospital in Glenside, South Australia.
Hugh Linaker (1872–1938) was a gardener and landscape gardener, who worked on various local and state government projects in the State of Victoria, Australia.