Graylands Hospital

Statement of Significance

Graylands Hospital has significant aesthetic, historic, social and representative cultural heritage value in its
original buildings. The Hospital exhibits aesthetic characteristics consistent with Pre World War I public
architecture in Western Australia. It is representative of the approach to mental health and its many changes
since it was first built in c1908. Graylands Hospital exhibits important social heritage value as it has
proYided approximately 90 years of continual service to Mental Health in Western Australia.

Physical Description

There are various buildings on the Graylands site which is a large area facing onto Brockway Road. The
main building is Fortescue House. It is a 1:\vo storey brick and tile building with horizontal rendered string
courses, painted white. The building has tall brick chimneys with mouldings around the top and stucco
rendering for approximately six courses. These are capped with 1:\:vo chimney pots per chimney. The
windows are timber vertical sash, nine panes per sash. The entry doors are a pair of timber doors with
similar side panels, 24 panes each. The building is divided into wings. The wings are symmetrical with a
gable in the centre with timber projecting corbelling and timber detailing, with small louvres at the apex. At
either end there are similar gables. The next unit is at an angle. The adjacent one has a corner joining block
with the same detailing, but with smaller windows and a lower roof line.

Other buildings on the site are from a variety of periods - 1960s with low long flat -roof buildings, and 1970s
and 1980s workshops, garages and other medical units in brick and metal deck. A large portion of the site is
grassed scattered with trees (Eucalyptus and firs) with red brick paths, two metres wide, connecting the
carpark areas to the central building. There are smaller buildings of similar brick and tile design
(1940s/1950s) and plant and storage areas serving the main hospital.

History

Graylands Hospital is part of the hospital fonnerly known as Claremont Hospital. In September 1972,
Claremont was split into two hospitals. each named after the then adjoining suburbs: Swanbourne and
Graylands. Coincidentally, all of the suburb of Graylands as well as the adjoining portion of suburban
Swanbourne becnme Mount Claremont in the ea rly 1990s. Hence Graylands Hospital is now also in Mount
Claremont.

Swanbourne Hospital accommodated patients with mental deficiency and organic brain syndrome (dementia).
Eventually these patients were moved to new. custom-built facilities around the metropolitan area and the old
Swanbourne wards were demolished.

Six of the former Swanbonrne Hospital buildings remain "up on the hill". The Administrative building can
be seen from Brockway Road and John 23rd Drive while the imposing Montgomery Hall can be seen from
Montgomery Drive and Rochdale Road. The other four buildings do not have such wide visibility. The
"Head Mnlc Nurse's Corridor" building and the "Matron's Corridor" building form a quadrangle with the
long-time Stores building. but the quadrangle is almost filled by the main Kitchens building.

The Stores building was the very first building completed on the site. Work commenced in late 1901 with a
party of about 20 inmates from the Fremantle Asylum who camped on the site tor many months and built the
first building under supervision of asylum warders and trades foremen. This building was the first ward
before it e\'entually became the Stores building. This building is joined by a covered way (under which the
internnl roadwny passed) to the rear of the Administration building. Montgomery Hall was a multi-function
building - it was a huge dining hall for many people per sitting. but also a venue for dances. concerts. plays,
lilms and other entertainments. with indoor sports and meetings. Il is in fact (since the early 1970s) the
largest proscenium arch theatre in Perth.

Graylands Hospital wards remain, as the state's major psychiatric hospital. There are a number of buildings
on the campus with an interesting history. Buildings known as "X-Block" were commenced in 1908 to
relieve "congestion on the male side in the main block" in the Claremont Hospital half a mile away on the
hill. The complex consisted of three identical double storey buildings and a fourth building which was only
half finished. They had their own main kitchen building and dining hall (Anderson Hall) and were built "as
plainly and cheaply as possible". (Anderson Hall had the same multi-function uses as Montgomery Hall).
There was also a warden's cottage. The original buildings of Claremont Hospital had been built in the
traditionnl Victorian asylum style, with the trademark tower. It is believed that the new wards were designed
to be a depnrture from this as the plnn was to have a circle of buildings ('wards) with services in the centre.
However. this was only partinlly achieved at the time -and has never been completed. 150 patients were
housed in these wnrds. many of them working on the fann. 65 cows provided hospitals in Perth and
Fremantlc with milk - and descendants of this herd. now at Whitby Falls Hostel in Mundijong. are still
winning prizes nt the Roynl Show.

Patient numbers in the X-Block wnrds rose to 260 in the 1950s but as lounge rooms (and Inter dining rooms)
had been crcntcd nt the expense of some dormitories. the remaining dormitories were excessively crowded.
These preYiously stnnd-nlone buildings were joined with the addition of nblution areas but were still totally
separate entities. despite abutting.

X-Block wards were refurbished in 1967. Three were named after Perth suburbs (as were all other wards in
Claremont Hospital): Palmyra. Osborne and Nedlands.. Patient numbers were reduced to around 90, but
sleeping accommodation was still in dormitories. Th'~ half-sized ward became the Occupational Therapy
Department. Patients were still segregated by gender, with separate wards for males and females.

X-Block buildings were redeveloped in 1987-90. The cottage was demolished and replaced with a large
building housing a new Kiosk and OT Department. The wards were e:-.iended and internal spaces
reallocated. Dormitories were divided into two-bed rooms and offices were provided for clinical staff of the
treating teams. What had been five separate buildings finally became an integrated complex with internal
linkways on both the ground and first Doors. Conforming to a hospital-wide change. the building was
renamed Fortescue House and the wards within were named Plaistowe. Hutchison and Langley. The former
OT Department became the mother and baby unit and was named Cullity. Anderson Hall, used for functions,
remains. The old X-Biock kitchen building has been redeveloped and houses the Patient's Library, the
Chaplaincy Service and the Chapel. A new kitchen at the rear of Anderson Hall had been provided earlier.

In the 1940s a new ward was built which was taken over by the Army as Military Hospital No 5, Davies Road
Claremont, until the end of the war. It later housed the Gray lands Day Hospital for a number of years (about
1959-65). This was a separate hospital located in th•e grounds of Claremont. In 1967 it was re-named
Riverton House and in 1972, with the separation of Claremont into two hospitals, it housed the
administration offices of the new Gray lands Hospital as well as an in-patient ward. In 1965 the Day Hospital
was relocated to the nearby Selby complex which was p1urpose built for this function. In 1988 Riverton was
re-named Gascoyne House and now it is no longer a ward, being the location of the Postgraduate Centre, the
StafT Development Unit, the Centre for Clinical Research in Neuropsychiatry and the Psychiatric Services
Library.

In 1967 two "temporary buildings" were erected to cater for increasing numbers of patients. They were called
Tuart and Swanbourne (later changed to Shenton when Swanbourne Hospital was created). Now known as
Moore and Shaw. only one is a ward. the other houses non-clinical departments and the Mental Health
Museum of W A

In 1975 CreatiYe Expression was opened. An art therapy unit, it had existed since 1968 initially located in
the old d<liry. but eventually moved into its own custom-designed building. The architecture was modern and
not at all sympathetic to the surrounding historic buildings.

In 1981 Wembley A and B were opened as security wards to take the place of the security wards in the
Claremont/Swanbourne complex. The complex is now known as Ashburton and the wards within are Smith,
Montgomery and Smith Acute. Again the architecture was modern - although different from Creative
Expression.

Several wards were built on the Graylands campus in the late 1980s to replace those which had been situated
on land sold in 1985 for the building of John XXIII College. As well as a cricket ground/football oval
complete with grandstand. many buildings were lost including one originally known as "J Block" which was
a children's ward - it later became the Mental Health Services School of Nursing. Also lost was Manning
WCird - replaced by the current Murchison. now the only long-stay rehabilitation ward at Gray lands. Hospital
WCird Clnd the Admissions/ Assessment Ward Cl lso needed to be replaced, and can now be found in Fitzroy
House.

The Frankland Centre was opened at the end of 1994 amidst much public outmge at the siting of a maximum
security unit in the middle of what had over the years become a very affluent near-city suburb. The wards are
named Acacia. Banksia and Caesia. Fitzroy House and the Frankland Centre were both designed with
architectural features which reflect the historic buildi ngs: nearby.

Patient numbers in Graylands Hospital have been reduce:d steadily oyer the years and currently stand at 250.

Hospital buildings are named after Western Australian rivers, and wards within them are named after people
with an historical connection to Mental Health Services in W A.

FORTESCUE Langley
Hutchison
Plaistowe
Cullity
ASHBURTON Smith
Montgomery

Other buildings not already mentioned here are also named after rivers: ORD, MOORE, DE GREY,
KALGAN, FORREST, COLLIE and MITCHELL.

Integrity/Authenticity

Good

Condition

Good

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

Publish place record online (inHerit):

Last Update

Disclaimer

This information is provided voluntarily as a public service. The information provided is made available in good faith and is derived from sources believed to be reliable and accurate. However, the information is provided solely on the basis that readers will be responsible for making their own assessment of the matters discussed herein and are advised to verify all relevant representations, statements and information.