Metropolitan hospital for the Insane

This idealized woodcut may have differed from the reality but the reference to a country estate is unmistakeable. In fact, as can be seen in a photograph taken from almost the same perspective in 1869 (Fig. 80.7), it is obvious that the asylum aspects of the site have been glossed over, particularly the fencing, to heighten the sense of the asylum as country house. 

What is clear is the importance a familiar and ordered landscape is regarded in restoring sanity. In the 1858 report, the questioning of witnesses revolves around the necessity for providing familiar and domestic surroundings (Report from the Select Committee upon the Lunatic Asylum, 1858 23, 54, 127) and naturally and quite unselfconsciously, the familiar and domestic are groimded in memories of home , that is, of England. 

at Yarra Bend, a visitor familiar with St Luke s in England describes the grounds as follows  

There is emphasis placed on the cottage gardens that are tended by the inmates with pleasant weeping plants and arbors, while elsewhere  

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Fig. 80.6 Metropolitan hospital for the Insane, 1869 (Australian News image. State Library of...

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