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Residents of Glenside Hospital & Parkside Mental HospitalPrint Page Print this page

01-September-2021
01-September-2021

Photographs supplied by Stephen Warren
The rose garden commemorates those who lived at the former Glenside Hospital and Parkside Mental Hospital from 1870 to September 2000.

Glenside Hospital, as it was known from 1967, previously the Public Colonial Lunatic Asylum of South Australia, Parkside Lunatic Asylum and Parkside Mental Hospital, was a complex of buildings used as a psychiatric hospital in Glenside, South Australia. 

The Public Colonial Lunatic Asylum of South Australia was founded at the site in 1846 as the state's first purpose-run asylum to house residents deemed mentally ill. It was run more like a farm than a hospital, and housed patients deemed too mentally unwell to be housed in the Adelaide Gaol. It operated until 1852, when the Adelaide Lunatic Asylum opened on the eastern side of the old Royal Adelaide Hospital (now Lot Fourteen), on land now part of the Adelaide Botanic Garden, and the Glenside site was not used for such purposes for another 18 years.

It reopened as Parkside Lunatic Asylum in 1870, housing the chronically mentally ill as well as people nearing the end of their lives, those suffering from undiagnosed illnesses, unmarried women with children and prostitutes. The morgue for the asylum was a building in the Adelaide Botanic Garden. 

The institution was renamed Parkside Mental Hospital in 1913 at the time of changes in the Mental Health Act 1913, when it was classified as both a receiving and a mental hospital. The large administration building became the receiving hospital and the other buildings were used for long-term patients. The infamous "Z Ward" housed the criminally and mentally insane. Parkside was also referred to as "The Bin".

Erindale Secure Ward for Males, a lower security unit than the Z Ward, was built in 1877 and The Elms in 1880 to house female patients, although later used for elderly men, then as a Domestic Training Unit and for Music Therapy. Residency of Parkside Lunatic Asylum peaked at 1,769 in 1958. The facility was renamed Glenside Hospital in 1967.

Since the 1970s the original site has been subdivided and parcels of land sold off, largely for housing. The large administration building fronting the side was refurbished to house the Adelaide Studios of the South Australian Film Corporation in 2011. The site is sometimes referred to as "the old Glenside Hospital", the "Glenside Hospital historical precinct" or "Glenside Campus".

 

Location

Address:1 Mulberry Road, South Australian Film Corporation, Glenside, 5065
State:SA
Area:AUS
GPS Coordinates:Lat: -34.943116
Long: 138.626753
Note: GPS Coordinates are approximate.
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Details

Monument Type:Garden
Monument Theme:Culture
Sub-Theme:Community
Approx. Event Start Date:1870
Approx. Event End Date:September-2000

Dedication

Approx. Monument Dedication Date:September-2000
Front Inscription

Plaque :

These roses are to commemorate all those who have lived within these walls from 1870 to the present day

September 2000

Inscription in Proximity

The adjacent plaque was relocated from the courtyard of the nearby Administration building, which once formed part of the Glenside Hospital (previously Parkside Mental Hospital).

The building was redeveloped in 2010 - 11 as a component of the Adelaide Studios - home of the South Australian Film Corporation.

Source: MA
Monument details supplied by Monument Australia - www.monumentaustralia.org.au