Hospital type Specialist Closed 1995 Founded 1867 | Speciality Psychiatric Number of beds 1,200 | |
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Location Beechworth,, Victoria, Australia | ||
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Beechworth Lunatic Asylum, originally known as the haunted Mayday Hills Lunatic Asylum is a decommissioned hospital located in Beechworth, a town of Victoria, Australia. Mayday Hills Lunatic Asylum was the fourth such Hospital to be built in Victoria, being one of the three largest. Mayday Hills Hospital closed in 1995 after 128 years of operation.
Contents
The asylum was surrounded by almost 106 hectares of farmland, making the hospital self-sufficient with its own piggery, orchards, kitchen gardens, fields, stables and barn. For recreation, the asylum included tennis courts, an oval and cricket pavilion, kiosk and theatre.
Ha-Ha Walls
One of the distinctive features of both Kew Asylum and Beechworth Asylum is the use of a variation on Ha-Ha walls around the patients courtyards. These ha-has consisted of a trench, one side of which was vertical and faced with stone or bricks, the other side sloped and turfed. From the inside, the walls presented a tall face to patients, preventing them from escaping, while from outside, the walls looked low so as not to suggest imprisonment.
Admission process
People could be admitted to the asylum as a lunatic patient by a number of means:
To be admitted, only two signatures were required. To be discharged, eight signatures were required, thus it was a lot harder to get out than to get in.
Current Uses
Beechworth Lunatic Asylum is currently owned by La Trobe Beechworth Pty Ltd, and managed by La Trobe University.
A venue used for weddings is the Chapel of the Resurrection, to the west of the site. It was built in 1868 as the mortuary for the complex, and was converted to the chapel seen today in the 1960s.
The gardens date to the 19th century, covering 11 hectares, and are open to the public from dawn until dusk.