Old Photos and their story

Alongside Humphrey Street was the wall that segregated the hospital and the community and on the hospital side of the wall there was a small laneway called “Flinders Street” by the late June Purkiss who worked at the hospital from the 1940’s. It was so busy with foot and cart traffic that it was said to resemble that busy CBD Melbourne street.

All this area has now been demolished including the rear of the Barracks building. This was to make way for new wards in the early 1960’s. The front of the Barracks on the photo below shows the hole and driveway that was created for trucks to remove the building rubble. The rubble was used for widening the local roads in the Derwent Valley, filling in an area on the Esplanade and also as fill up against the hospital wall so the new ward for the Criminally Insane could be built on top.

The other old photo above is the original wall and gates that led up the driveway that faces the front of the Barracks. There has always been debate as to where the original gate disappeared to, some say that a politician has them on the front of his country property still. This has never been proved though.

B Ward (above) was also demolished in the early 1960’s but its foundations can still be see in the Geophysical mapping that was done by Flinders University. The red lined square shape is the current C Ward yard which contains part of B Ward or Male Refractory and part of A Ward later referred to as the Gentleman’s Cottage”.

One of the most recognisable buildings on the site was K1 and K2 wards (below) and the large central clock tower. When this was also demolished in the early 1960’s one resident from Humphrey Street stated she could now see the sun in the morning for the first time since she live there in the shadow of the tower. Many were sad to see this iconic structure demolished, but a hospital that needed to progress was the order of the day and new buildings were going to occupy the site soon.