Callan Park hospital for the Insane

May 15, 2017

Callan Park hospital for the Insane

Wikipedia: The Callan Park Hospital for the Insane (1878 – 1914) was an insane asylum located in the grounds of Callan Park, an area on the shores of Iron Cove in the Sydney suburb of Lilyfield in Australia.

In 1915 the facility was renamed Callan Park Mental Hospital, and again in 1976 to Callan Park Hospital. Since 1994, the facility has been formally known as Rozelle Hospital.

In April 2008, all Rozelle Hospital services and patients were transferred to Concord Hospital.

In 1873 the Colonial Government of New South Wales purchased the Callan Park site, then known as "Callan Estates", with the purpose of building a large lunatic asylum to ease the severe overcrowding at the Gladesville Hospital for the Insane, at Bedlam Point, near Tarban Creek in Gladesville.

The new lunatic asylum was designed according to the views of Dr Thomas Kirkbride, an American. Colonial Architect James Barnet worked with the Inspector of the Insane Dr Frederick Norton Manning to produce a group of twenty neo-classical buildings. These were completed in 1885 and named the Kirkbride Block.

Despite the recent transfer of patients, many of the buildings were disused long beforehand.

On a large garden estate overlooking the waterfront it is easy to think Callan Park provided nothing less then luxurious care to its ill-minded patients, but the more gruesome history lies in the abandoned cell blocks and wards.

On such meticulously manicured lawns and with wards hidden amongst such extensive gardens, overlooking the waterfront - it would be easy to think that the poor ill-minded patients of Callan park, lived a comfortable and luxurious life. If only so...