Hawksbury, also known as Cherry Farm (and sometimes erroneously as "Evansdale"), is a small residential and industrial area in New Zealand, located beside

State Highway 1 The following highways are numbered 1. For roads numbered A1, see list of A1 roads. For roads numbered B1, see list of B1 roads. For roads numbered M1, see List of M1 roads. For roads numbered N1, see list of N1 roads. For roads numbere ...

between

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

and

Waikouaiti Waikouaiti is a small town in East Otago, New Zealand, within the city limits of Dunedin. The town is close to the coast and the mouth of the Waikouaiti River. Today, Waikouaiti is a retail trade and servicing centre for the surrounding district ...

.Sea Container history. Seadog 1979.

Place names

Hawksbury was the site of Dunedin's Cherry Farm Psychiatric Hospital, and the name Cherry Farm is still widely used within Otago for the hospital's former site. The name HawksburyCrown Protected Area Placenames
(

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file on

Land Information New Zealand Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) is the public service department of New Zealand charged with geographical information and surveying functions as well as handling land titles, and managing Crown land and property. The minist ...

website, retrieved 2009-07-02 (often misspelled ''Hawkesbury'') was an early

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

name for the settlement at Waikouaiti, and is still applied to the nearby Hawksbury Lagoon and several businesses there. The developers of Hawksbury Village probably changed the name from Cherry Farm because of the

social stigma Social stigma is the disapproval of, or discrimination against, an individual or group based on perceived characteristics that serve to distinguish them from other members of a society. Social stigmas are commonly related to culture, gender, rac ...

attached to psychiatric hospitals. The area's association with

mental health Mental health encompasses emotional, psychological, and social well-being, influencing cognition, perception, and behavior. It likewise determines how an individual handles stress, interpersonal relationships, and decision-making. Mental health ...

care is maintained in the name of the Hawksbury Community Living Trust, a service set up in 1992 to rehouse former hospital patients, which has since opened 10 further homes in Dunedin and Christchurch. Hawksbury is sometimes erroneously referred to as Evansdale, owing to the prominent signage on the

Evansdale Cheese Evansdale Cheese Factory is a small New Zealand producer of handmade cheeses, located at Hawksbury in Otago, about 35 km north of Dunedin on State Highway 1. It takes its name from its original location at Evansdale, which lies 15 k ...

factory, which moved to Hawkesbury from Evansdale in the 1990s. The nearby

Matanaka Farm Matanaka Farm is near Waikouaiti in Otago, New Zealand. The five buildings are the oldest surviving farm buildings that are still in their original position in the country. The farm is owned and administered by Heritage New Zealand. Additionally ...

, which contains New Zealand's oldest surviving farm buildings, was first settled by the pioneer whaler Johnny Jones in 1840. Cherry Farm was named for Captain Cherry, the master of one of Jones's ships.Moore, C.W.S., (1958) ''Northern Approaches.'' Dunedin: Otago Centennial Historical Publications. p.19

Hawksbury Village

''Cherry Farm Hospital'', a

psychiatric Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry. Initial psychi ...

hospital serving the Dunedin area, opened in 1952,Benson, Nigel "Seacliff asylum's painful and haunting history," ''

Otago Daily Times The ''Otago Daily Times'' (ODT) is a newspaper published by Allied Press Ltd in Dunedin, New Zealand. The ''ODT'' is one of the country's four main daily newspapers, serving the southern South Island with a circulation of around 26,000 and a c ...

'', 27 January 2007. and patients from

Seacliff Mental Hospital Seacliff Lunatic Asylum (often Seacliff Asylum, later Seacliff Mental Hospital) was a psychiatric hospital in Seacliff, New Zealand. When built in the late 19th century, it was the largest building in the country, noted for its scale and extrava ...

Seacliff Seacliff comprises a beach, an estate and a harbour. It lies east of North Berwick, East Lothian, Scotland. History The beach and estate command a strategic position at the mouth of the Firth of Forth, and control of the area has been conte ...

were relocated there soon afterwards. Cherry Farm Hospital epitomised the village-asylum atmosphere in name and design, contrasting with the harsh conditions in the fortress-like Seacliff Hospital. When the hospital closed in 1992, it was the consequence of new arrangements for the three groups of patients that remained. While at its peak Cherry Farm had many hundreds of patients, in latter years this number had dropped to below 400. Psychogeriatric and general adult psychiatric patients were either transferred to

Wakari Hospital Wakari Hospital is a psychiatric hospital located in Dunedin, New Zealand. It is situated in the suburb of Wakari, about three kilometres north-west of the city centre. The hospital is operated by the Southern District Health Board (formerly Ota ...

, or to residential care or supported accommodation in the community, people with intellectual disability moved to new lives in the community provided by a range of community agencies, one of which was Hawksbury Community Living Trust. The closure of Cherry Farm Hospital was a key milestone in the policy of successive governments to implement

deinstitutionalisation Deinstitutionalisation (or deinstitutionalization) is the process of replacing long-stay psychiatric hospitals with less isolated community mental health services for those diagnosed with a mental disorder or developmental disability. In the late ...

. This process was completed nationwide in October 2006 with the closure of Kimberley Centre, Levin, the last large institution of its type. Hawksbury Village located in East Otago is a privately owned and managed Residential Village. It is run by a Board of Directors elected by the Shareholders of whom some own properties in the Village. Since the hospital site was converted to a residential village many modern homes have been built that now house local families. There are still a few privately owned buildings that were part of the hospital network and some of the bigger ones called "Villas" these have now been converted to residential homes. Amenities available in the Village include Hawksbury Christian Fellowship Church, Moana Gow Pool, Evansdale Cheese Factory and Matanaka Meats. Moana Gow Pool is a 20m, 4 lane heated pool which offers swimming lessons, aquacize, adult lane swimming and more. A new bus shelter has recently been built for the children in Hawksbury Village who use the local school bus services. This shelter also houses a new Hawksbury Village information map so that visitors can find their way easily, and locate the amenities in the village.

References

External links

Hawksbury Community Living Trust
{{Hospitals in New Zealand Populated places in Otago Psychiatric hospitals in New Zealand Defunct hospitals in New Zealand Waikouaiti