Local – Page 18 – Willow Court Tasmania

Heritage Month / Dark Mofo events

April 17, 2016 No Comments

Some great opportunities to get out and about at Willow Court and Frascati House in May and June 2016. The maximum cost is $5 for persons over 12 years old.

The Friends of Willow Court will be running events at the site for Heritage Festival 2016 which you can access. On May 14th and 15th Heather Burke, Assoc Professor of Archaeology, Flinders University, will talk about the results from the recent geophysical investigations around Willow Court and Frascati House, and her long term plans to conduct archaeological excavations at the site over the next 10 years. Cost $5, under 12 years, free.

The Friends of Frascati are also running an event the weekend before at Friscati House. Frascati dates back to 1834 when John Burnett, the first Colonial Secretary, built his country villa on the site. Recent works have questioned whether Burnett added onto an existing building and whether there was a pre-existing building on site at the time. Come and rediscover some of Frascati’s history. Tours of Frascati House and historic gardens available. Two great weekends of Willow Court activities to enjoy, entry by gold coin donation.

Another opportunity to visit the site will be during a Dark Mofo event. Seminal Australian performance artist Mike Parr pushed to his limits in and around the grounds of the former Royal Derwent Hospital (circa 1827). Please register your interest in the event; full details will be announced soon: http://darkmofo.net.au/mike-parr-registration

Asylum, the exhibition, is open:
Thursday 9 – Monday 13 June, 12 – 4pm
Saturday 18 + Sunday 19 June, 12 – 4pm
Free

Entry by Mirror Only, the 72-hour performance, is open continuously for three days:
Begins 12pm, Thursday 9 June
Ends 12pm, Sunday 12 June
Entry by mirror only: bring a shard, or full mirror, to leave behind.

Please note that both the exhibition and installation contain disturbing content and themes, and may not be suitable for children.

Presented by Detached Cultural Organisation in association with Dark Mofo

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1856 Document found in the United Kingdom.

April 1, 2016 No Comments

1856 cover — Regulations for the guidance of officers and attendants 1856‏

This is a document that gives clear guidance for each of the staff positions at the New Norfolk Lunatic Asylum. Dated 1856 and printed in Tasmania this is a truly rare document that was found in the United Kingdom Archives. Click the image above to read this document or click “Articles” below to see all documents stored on this website.

Articles

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Damage continues at Willow Court

March 26, 2016 5 Comments

imag1627 Students of Flinders University have been able to capture the continuing vandalism of Willow Court. While the Barracks and Bronte remain low risk and clear of the damage that previously plagued the site, the same can not be said of Carlton (C Ward), Industrial Therapies and Alonnah Wards (A Ward). Under the protection by the owner, the Derwent Valley Council these buildings remain subject to vandalism including the smashing of many of the one inch thick glass panels that distinguish the property as the old criminal division of Lachlan Park.

We hope that this ongoing damage can be stopped soon and the Council can protect these public assets. The cost of replacing the many glass panes is unknown but would be considerable. These Wards are often the most visually powerful in getting people to understand this part of the site housed people who were considered dangerous to the community. Large walls, 1″ thick glass windows and three inch thick laminated doors housed Tasmania’s Criminals who were judged criminally insane.

Later the site was used to house people with intellectual disabilities because the Criminal division was moved to the Risdon Prison site. A number of reports considered and recommended the wards inappropriate and should close.

The Derwent Valley Council also reported a breakin at Frascati House and the door needed repair and resecuring earlier this year.

Even after the roofing iron was removed from Carlton Ward and the Deputy Mayor reported it, it remained off for a couple of weeks and allowed access for urban explorers, paranormal enthusiasts and vandals.

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Heritage month plans

March 15, 2016 No Comments

Heritage week

The Friends of Willow Court and the Friends of Frascati are both planning events for 2016 Heritage month. The Friends of Willow Court are looking at tours with Associate Professor Heather Burke and Mark Woodley on the 14th and 15th of May 2016, while the Friends of Frascati House are looking at an Open House on the 8th May 2016.

This is a great opportunity to hear from those that have been working at Willow Court. Hear what has been found so for from Archaeology investigation and listen to Mark talk about his work on the external wall, pictured and restored below.

Both tours are before the Derwent Valley Council for final approval.

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More information when it becomes available.

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Governor of Tasmania, Professor the Honourable Kate Warner, and Mr Warner at Civic reception at Willow Court.

March 7, 2016 No Comments

Governor of Tasmania, Professor the Honourable Kate Warner, and Mr Warner commenced an official visit to the Municipality of Derwent Valley.

Today the Governor of Tasmania, Professor the Honourable Kate Warner, and Mr Warner commenced an official visit to the Municipality of Derwent Valley.
In the morning at Boyer, the Governor and Mr Warner undertook a tour and met with staff at the Norske Skog Paper Mill.
Later, the Governor and Mr Warner visited New Norfolk Primary School where they met with students and staff followed by a visit to the Ptunarra Child and Family Centre.
In the afternoon the Governor and Mr Warner attended a luncheon at Woodbridge on Derwent, followed by a civic reception hosted by the Municipality of Derwent Valley at Willow Court, prior to undertaking a tour of buildings and grounds.

The civic reception is being held in the Bronte Building with invited guests.

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Flinders University Blog site

March 3, 2016 1 Comment

Keep up to date on all things Archeology from Flinders University at Willow Court field school by subscribing to their student blog site. Each students writes about their experiences and the work they were involved in, discovering the hidden history of the site. Information that links the past to real people can be read here along with photos of articles and finds that inspire a student of Archeology and passionate enthusiast alike.

Each year the field school return to Australia’s oldest continually run hospital for the feeble minded and the invalid alike. The history is buried deep in our convict past, even the first staff were taken from the convict population, which set the site up for a brutal past history unlike asylums that were created for the free settler population.

Each year the work is more in depth and requires a lot more activity and equipment as the momentum builds toward a dig site.

The Derwent Valley Council should be congratulated on this partnership and it’s the sort of professional activity and development that is needed on the site. Based on the findings, tour groups can hear about real science based hypothesis that either supports or tells a different story to our already expanding written literature.

From this the best thematic interpreted tours and stories can be developed over the next ten years while the University use the site for their field school.

Click the picture below to access the blog site.

Picture of the Students working at marking out a grid before doing a Geophysics survey.

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Communication system

March 2, 2016 No Comments

The old communication system at Willow Court is a mess of wire and broken bakelite phones on the floor of the Barracks. It’s been a busy job going through the bits and pieces for archaeology investigation. What to keep and what to discard? Can anyone remember these being in place?

click image above and arrow to move to next picture.

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DVC confusion

February 29, 2016 No Comments

Are the Derwent Valley Council confused about Willow Court use? It would appear so. The Malcolm McDonald Report was the professional advice the Council spent $80,000 of taxpayer funds to obtain, so they could follow the best path for the centre.

Yet in the Gazette the Mayor, who has previously declared Willow Court to be one of the most haunted sites in Australia, without evidence has declared that the expressions of interest process will go ahead to look for “after dark ghost tours (exploiting previous staff and patients), weddings, history tours and even a gallery or wine show” plan to activate site

The current state of the Derwent Council and their decision making was on display on social media a couple of weeks ago after the last meeting when the planned food van/main street festival idea was voted down. There appears to be many agendas with individual council members and we are not sure if this is one of them. We also believe that spending $80,00 of taxpayer funds on advice only to totally ignore it is disappointing of the public office.

While these plans are going ahead, the Council are still in negotiation with the Agrarian Kitchen and a micro brewery to occupy the Bronte building.

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New Norfolk Structure Plan (Draft)

February 16, 2016 No Comments

This is the section of the Structure Report from the Derwent Valley Council that relates to Willow Court and Royal Derwent Hospital. There are some interesting statements on the Willow Court side, in particular the “development in a ad-hoc manner” and “there is currently no overall documented vision or consistent set of objectives for Willow Court”.

As for the Royal Derwent side of the Lachlan River; “identify risks on site, including flood prone land and potential land contamination”, this would be referring to development in low areas along the Lachlan River and the the fact that there were landfill sites with “potential bio-hazard material” and also a previous unknown location of an “asbestos dumping site”. There has been concern over asbestos during the demolition process along with other building rubble.

The current zone , it would appear is for residential urban development on the Royal Derwent Hospital side of the Lachlan River which would raise concerns with the unknown location of the asbestos dump and ground contamination.

While this is a draft document there are concerns, hopefully now the Council know these they can be addressed. We will watch this space.

Click image above to see full document.

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Archaeology field work at Willow Court.

February 14, 2016 No Comments

It’s been a big week at Willow Court with the Archaeology team on their field trip from Flinders University. Many of the students have been doing 14 hour days with field work and their study load. It was a pleasant and relaxed break on Friday night to enjoy a BBQ with the Team and the Friends of Willow Court. There was a lot of talk about the site and it’s history.

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The next day the team were back into the work with a survey team, a geophysics team and more cataloguing of items including the clothing found in the privately owned Ladies Cottage.

077 Logging each pass in the grid as a file

The geophysics team used three types of ground penetrating radar in the quest for hidden foundations and artifacts. Early reports have found, what is believed to be the foundations of the Male Refractory building, which is an “L” shape” and crosses from Carlton yard to the rear of the Carlton side yard. The equipment is so sensitive that the metal contained in the Carlton Ward exercise yard walls was showing up on the equipments data up to five metre away from the wall.

070 Students setting up the grid

When I visited, the team were setting out grids behind the Barracks and beside the Carlton Ward and old Lachlan Ward, which is now converted to residential units. Once the grid was set out the radar was dragged over the surface and each pass was logged as a separate file which will later form an overall bigger picture.

065 Calibrating the equipment

The internal walls were being measured in the Barracks and the floorboards were of some interest and were being analysed and the data was being recording. The survey team were just finishing the Willow Court side and started to survey the grounds of Frascati House.

The Friends of Willow Court are hoping that Associate Professor will be able to return to present some of the findings in a public information / lecture session during heritage month activities this year (yet to be confirmed and approved by DVC).

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