Mont Park map courtesy of B Robson.

7 hospitals on 185 hectares

  • 1846 – 1847 Plenty Road constructed
  • 1910 Mont Park commenced with the building of the Farm Workers Block later renamed Kingsbury Training Centre
  • Wardens and other staff homes, including Linaker home near Plenty Road built in 1911
  • 1912 Hugh Linaker employed to lay out the grounds of Mont Park and other State mental institutions
  • 1913 a Ward opened for Paying Patients – used for quiet female patients as overflow from Yarra Bend Asylum
  • 1913 central garden planted near Chronic Wards and Nymphaea Lake in front of the Male Division (Farm Workers Block) and a croquet lawn at the Female Division
  • 1914 Idiot Block and Idiot Cottages built for former residents of Kew Cottages to work on the farm
  • 1914 – 1933 Defence Department erected the Mont Park Central Block and  the Chronic Wards – opened as Australian General Hospital No 16 for use as a Military Hospital – later reverting to the State as a part of Mont Park
  • 1915 – 1918 Laundry Workers block used to house ex-servicemen from 1915 until 1917 – Australian General Hospital No 14 until 1918
  • 1915 Macleod Repatriation Hospital – for incurables, shell shock victims, ill trainees from Broadmeadows camp and some mental patients
  • 1915 Mont Park orchard commenced production
  • 1919 Avenue of Honour – 46 Sugar Gums planted with more added in WWII
  • 1919 special military hospital ward erected at Mont Park – Plenty Building Nos 1 to 3
  • 1920 Bundoora Repatriation Hospital took over the Bundoora Homestead
  • 1920 ten of the twelve wards in the Chronic Block were vacated by the Defence Department – two still occupied by military mental patients
  • 1925 the Mont Park plantations were nearing completion
  • 1926 central grounds of Mont Park were completed
  • 1927 – 1930 Ernest Jones Hall built
  • 1933 Gresswell Sanatorium built to replace fever tents
  • 1935 Isolation Block for infectious disease management
  • 1934 formal Occupational Therapy commenced
  • 1938 first Dietitian appointed
  • 1938 Larundel Mental Hospital built but not opened until 1951 on the former vegetable garden site
  • 1941 first X-Ray unit installed
  • 1942 central sewerage system built
  • 1948 old dairy and orchard were becoming run down
  • 1954 a new milking plant installed
  • 1963 Plenty Mental Hospital designated as a separate facility
  • 1974 Kingsbury Training Centre named

References:

Buildings of Mont Park – https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/5619

Lovell Chen Review of Heritage Overlay Controls –  for City of Darebin (2014)