A visit to Mayday Hills Asylum at Beechworth, Victoria

I had a recent visit to Beechworth and to the Mayday Hills Asylum during a holiday and was able to take some photos and connect up with an historian connected with the local Burke Museum. The Asylum started its life in the mid 1800’s and the architecture shows this clearly compared with Willow Court’s Barracks building. The locals are very pleased that the recent sale of the property went to two local business men and access to the historic site and magnificent gardens is open and encouraged to locals and visitors alike.

A lot of buildings on the site have been reused while the original buildings sit in disrepair. A local group run ghost tours through the buildings and one historic tour on a Saturday. It is clear that any money made isn’t being returned into the site. From photos posted on their website only small groups of 6 to 10 maintain the interest during the evening tour and about the same for the single weekly historic tour.

The gardens are beautifully designed by Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller who also designed the Melbourne Botanical Gardens and was the Victorian appointed Botanist. There is a structured, self-guided tour just of the gardens which is worth the effort even in the rain when I visited.

The Nurses quarters have been re-purposed to accommodation and conference space and one of the larger buildings near the entrance has become the new Municipal Administration Office.

There is a book about the history of Mayday Hills Asylum which was written by the last CEO of the site and is now out of print. “The Lion of Beechworth” by Doug Craig will be reprinted soon as the author has given the rights over to the Burke Museum and the Board of the Museum are planning to keep the history alive through a second edition.

Click the picture to go to the gallery of photos. Click here for more information on Mayday Hills