This article, and the concept of inserting images and sounds into our Website, is a ‘work in progress’ as we examine some vision collected in the period 1994 to about 2004 that was captured on a VHS (video) camera and kindly provided to our Local History Project last year by former Mont Park Nurse, Mr Eric Wrigley (who is featured in one of our ‘People and Profiles’ articles, see here > https://www.montparktospringthorpe.com/eric-wrigley-nurse/).
Thankfully, for our Project and for those interested in the development of the Mont Park and Larundel sites, Eric wandered around the area (his former workplace) with his video camera in hand a few times, and captured some fantastic (albeit somewhat ‘grainy’) images as he narrated and identified the locations/buildings around the former Mont Park and Larundel sites.
This small extracted clip (see below) of about 55 seconds, was taken in 2004 from scaffolding that the land developer of the area had erected. Eric went up this scaffolding on Main Drive near the entrance to the Strathallan Golf Course to get the images in the link below.
The clip begins with a westerly view along Main Drive towards where the Larundel Hospital is/was, and then pans south over the early stages of the development of the Springthorpe Housing Estate, showing a partially demolished Nursing Home and around to the heritage protected former Mont Park Hospital ‘Laundry Workers Block’ that is used today as apartments.
The video camera then continues to pan east back around to Main Drive finally capturing the entrance to the Strathallan Golf Club car park.
We may look to embed more of these images into our Local History Website with their relevant backstories.
Thanks go to Eric for his insightfulness in capturing these images and for allowing us to use them in this way.
– Gary Cotchin
