Aradale Mental Hospital was an Australian

psychiatric hospital Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociative ...

, located in Ararat, a rural city in south-west

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. Originally known as Ararat Lunatic Asylum, Aradale and its two sister asylums at

Kew Kew () is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its population at the 2011 census was 11,436. Kew is the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens ("Kew Gardens"), now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace. Kew is a ...

and

Beechworth Beechworth is a well-preserved historical town located in the north-east of Victoria, Australia, famous for its major growth during the gold rush days of the mid-1850s. At the , Beechworth had a population of 3,859. Beechworth's many histor ...

were commissioned to accommodate the growing number of 'lunatics' in the

colony of Victoria In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...

. 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''.

Construction

The asylum was designed by G. W. Vivian and

John James Clark John James Clark (23 January 1838 – 25 June 1915), an Australian architect, was born in Liverpool, England. Clark's 30 years in public service, in combination with 33 in private practice, produced some of Australia's most notable public buildin ...

(at this time Vivian's assistant), adapting Vivian's initial designs for a similar buildings in

and

. Building commenced at Kew ( Kew Lunatic Asylum), Ararat and Beechworth (

Beechworth Asylum 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 seco ...

) at roughly the same time, however Ararat was completed first. The building of Ararat was contracted to O'Grady, Glynn and O'Callaghan 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.

Distinctive features

The asylum complex is an example of the E-plan

barracks Barracks are usually a group of long buildings built to house military personnel or laborers. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word "barraca" ("soldier's tent"), but today barracks are u ...

type lunatic asylums based on the model 1850s asylum in Colney Hatch, England. 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 Second Empire may refer to: * Second British Empire, used by some historians to describe the British Empire after 1783 * Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396) * Second French Empire (1852–1870) ** Second Empire architecture, an architectural styl ...

design, whereas Ararat and Beechworth are considered more typically

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

, though both styles have similar characteristics. The buildings are constructed from oversize bricks, which were then rendered with cement. Two storeyed ward wings extend to each side, one for each sex. The ward wings were surrounded by

courtyard A courtyard or court is a circumscribed area, often surrounded by a building or complex, that is open to the sky. Courtyards are common elements in both Western and Eastern building patterns and have been used by both ancient and contemporary ...

s lined with iron columned

veranda A veranda or verandah is a roofed, open-air gallery or porch, attached to the outside of a building. A veranda is often partly enclosed by a railing and frequently extends across the front and sides of the structure. Although the form ''veran ...

s, Another distinctive feature of Ararat and other early Victorian asylums is the use of a variation on ha-ha walls around the patients' courtyards. 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.

Grounds and landscaping

In 1913 the landscape gardener

Hugh Linaker 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. Originally hailing from Ballarat, he was appointed as the Curator of Parks and Gardens ...

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. Only a few remnants of the Linaker's plantings remain.

J Ward

In December 1886 the old gaol at Ararat was proclaimed as "

J Ward 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. Construction of the gaol commenced in 1859 and the facility was ope ...

" of the Ararat Asylum. It was to cater for those persons who were detained in any jail,

reformatory A reformatory or reformatory school is a youth detention center or an adult correctional facility popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Western countries. In the United Kingdom and United States, they came out of social concern ...

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. 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 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 Thomas Embling Hospital is a high-security forensic mental health hospital located in Fairfield, an inner Melbourne suburb in Victoria, Australia. The facility is operated by the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health, known as Forensicare ...
in Fairfield was completed.

Current use

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 in Victoria a world-class wine and hospitality training facility.

Lynne Kosky Lynne Janice Kosky (2 September 1958 – 4 December 2014) was an Australian politician and senior minister in the Government of Victoria. She represented the electoral district of Altona in the Victorian Legislative Assembly for the Labor Part ...

,
State-of-the-Art Australian College of Wine
'', Budget statement from the Minister For Post Compulsory Education, Training & Employment, Victorian Government, 15 May 2001. Accessed 3 September 2008

References

External links

Public Records Office of Victoria – Ararat Asylum Full tour of this site, as well as history, old photos and web links at Facebook
{{Hospitals in Victoria Ararat, Victoria Psychiatric hospitals in Australia Defunct prisons in Victoria (Australia) Defunct hospitals in Victoria (Australia) Hospital buildings completed in 1991 Hospitals established in 1865 1993 disestablishments 1865 establishments in Australia