In 1880 Barnet was instructed by Frederic Manning, Inspector General of the Insane, to design a modern, purpose built psychiatric hospital based on the pioneering work of American Dr Thomas Kirkbride.
Callan Park Hospital is one of only two purpose-built mental health asylums in NSW dating from the 19th century. The design was specifically chosen to provide the most advanced form of psychiatric care available at the time. It was one of the first institutions to employ ‘moral therapy’ - a combination of ‘good surroundings, work and religion, (Garton cited in Tanner 2011, p.18) and one which viewed the inhabitants as patients rather than inmates. The well-being of patients was taken into consideration when planning the buildings, open spaces, landscaping and gardens. (Tanner 2011, p.135)
The main ‘Kirkbride Block’ is designed in the English pavilion style with six pavilion wards of three storeys separated by courtyards or ‘airing courts’. There were separate male and female wings with an administration block in the centre. The hospital was self sufficient in terms of food production, with patients employed to tend vegetable gardens, crops and livestock. Rainwater was captured from the roofs via gutters that fed into the hollow verandah posts and down into vast underground storage tanks. The block also boasts a large water storage tower that can be seen as a landmark from neighbouring suburbs.
Another interesting feature of the Kirkbride Block are the boundary walls. They were designed as ‘ha-ha’ walls - a high stone wall recessed into a ditch where one side of the wall is high and the other low. At an asylum the walls work by preventing patients from escaping the hospital while at the same time providing an uninterrupted view of the landscape beyond.
This device works particularly well on the Western side of the Kirkbride Block where the land slopes down sharply. The ha-ha walls are built at the bottom of this slope so that when you are standing high within the complex you are given uninterrupted views across the Park towards Iron Cove and some days as far as the Blue Mountains. This was a deliberate effect of the design, as close proximity to the natural environment was part of the new therapy employed at Callan Park Mental Hospital, thought to have a calming effect on the patients.
The Kirkbride Block and other buildings that formed the Callan Park Mental Hospital in the late 1880s are of the ‘highest aesthetic value’ (Tanner 2011, p.138). The ‘innovative pavilion and cottage design’ display ‘fine proportions and detail and the unity of materials, form, scale and texture of the Kirkbride Block displays fine workmanship’ (ibid. p.138). ‘The design and high quality execution of the CPMH block, the largest in NSW and remarkably intact, is rare and of exceptional significance’ (ibid. p.142). The survival of the setting is unusual and therefore also valuable especially as the views from the block were an essential part of the original design.
Callan Park Mental Hospital became Rozelle Hospital in 1976. Rozelle Hospital closed in 2008 and all remaining patients were transferred to Concord Hospital.
The main Kirkbride Block of the Callan Park Mental Hospital has been occupied by Sydney College of the Arts, the University of Sydney’s fine arts faculty, since 1992. As with Garryowen, the Kirkbride Block has been well conserved and maintained by the University. However, the art students will be moving out in 2019, and then an uncertain future lies ahead for Kirkbride.
Once you have meandered through the Kirkbride Block you will exit via the rear of the block down the steps through the ha-ha walls. Make your way to the Convalescent Cottages which are across the road at the bottom of a slope.