Following the war, it would again be repurposed to house families that had been displaced due to war and for a time was even used as a school. It was a massive asylum with the capacity to house some patients, suffering from varying mental illnesses and psychotic disorders.
The hospital had also become infamous for having housed a known serial killer and for being the place where lithium was developed as a treatment method. Like most other psychiatric establishments of the time, Larundel was to close down as advances in the treatment of mental health were developed. The Larundel Psychiatric Hospital closed its doors for good in and has sat abandoned since, slowly accumulating graffiti and ghost stories.
There have been numerous people to report strange occurrences within the dilapidated ruins of the Larundel Psychiatric Hospital. Many of these reports have been of strange noises echoing through the empty rooms of the asylum. Loud bangs and crashes are common sounds, though these could easily be explained as caused by animals or the building simply continuing to collapse.
Other noises that have been described are a little more difficult to explain away. Many people claim to have heard voices yelling or the sounds of young children and babies crying.
In Larundel was given to the Department of Housing for emergency accommodation. The wards were hastily converted to flats. By there were families living at Larundel. By November the last of the families had moved out and thirty male patients were transferred from Mont Park Hospital.
Despite this large parts of the hospital remained unfinished and a low Government priority. It was not until that Larundel was officially opened as a mental hospital. It had patients, a quarter of which were women. Two years later eight additional wards opened, allowing for another patients of which were female. By the early s Larundel had a number of wards operating dealing with a wide variety of psychological illnesses.
These included acute psychiatrics, chronic schizophrenics, chronic psychotics and geriatric patients. A clinical laboratory had also been added. During the late s there was a strong move away from institutional care of psychiatric patients and towards community based care.
It was here that I found my first venomous spider, building its web across the gap between two wooden pillars. I decided to give it a wide berth. I ran into my accomplice in the room next door, where a lone chair stood sentry over the junction between two corridors.
We returned around the other side of the building, past a boiler room and out into the night. Stepping over the trailing security fence we headed back to the main road, and waited for a tram to the city. It was only when I later researched the history of the site, that I began stumbling across mentions of the asylum at Bundoora, scattered across a range of websites dedicated to ghosts and paranormal investigation.
In the fifteen years or so since the asylum closed its doors, it seems that many visitors have reported strange phenomena inside this increasingly dilapidated building.
The most common accounts refer to loud crashes and banging sounds coming through the walls, as well as strange smells and even the sound of children or babies crying. The Larundel complex certainly is a noisy place. Situated on the edge of a park, the buildings are often hit by strong gusts of wind.
The metal sheets riveted over every ground floor window and door have a habit of rattling and groaning — often with unsettling results. There were numerous moments during my exploration of the asylum, that I almost became convinced we were not alone in the building.
The voices and occasional laughter from passing pedestrians have a habit of getting caught inside the walls, their echoes bouncing down the still corridors. Much of the graffiti around the asylum seems to be aimed at perpetuating this sense of paranormal unease. This girl used to play with a music box, so the story goes, and apparently now you can sometimes hear it playing in the asylum at night. I even found a Youtube video which seems to have captured the thin strains of distant music within the Larundel Mental Asylum.
I always appreciate a good story, and would be the first in line for an up-close experience of the supernatural kind… but I feel my own sentiments can be summed up with a quote from the urban explorer, Ninjalicious :. Notice: It seems you have Javascript disabled in your Browser.
In order to submit a comment to this post, please write this code along with your comment: cee51e0c4ee7c6dff0. Why not save it? Wow, thank you… In my youth I had spent quite a bit of time at Larundel, as my Mum commenced attending Alanon meetings there.
I would have been around 7 years old and the circumstances leading to our presence at this place were just as actually, much more… haunting as the asylum you have captured and shared here. I have many reflections I could… and will share here. Most vividly, I remember being the only kid who was brought along to these meetings, so often… I would venture increasingly further down the hallwalls, taking various next, brave and bold, next steps around corners….
He suffered with epilepsy and the doctors felt this was the best place for him, whilst my mum had to care for 3 children under 5. For many years I have blacked out the memories. Throughout my primary school years I chose to tell my friends my father was dead, unable to explain he was trapped in an asylum. The photos haunt me, the bricks, the corridors.
Where is dad? I was a patient in larundel in I was in a secretion called Fawkner House, which was for year olds, approximately. I was admitted with severe depression and post trauma issues. I spent about 12 months there. I have to say it was an amazingly positive experience which turned by life around. The treatment was drug free and consisted solely of group therapy for hours a day.
The staff were psychiatrists, psychologists and psychiatric nurses. All of them were incredibly caring and competent. I left there feeling so much better, and have nothing but feelings of gratitude for my time there.
I was a patient at Larundel when Professor Graham Burrows established an eating disorder and mood disorder unit in the mid s. Had a few admissions…in the building that you photographed. I done some exploring there at around 3 am and let me say although all my video and film recording captured nothin that could not be percent debunked,the screaming energy and pain of the decades passed ended up making me run.
She ended up committing suicide, leaving her young children behind. This is a heart breaking story. Sorry your grandmother went through this mental torment. Like yourself I also wonder about the lack of awareness and support for generations past. I googled this mental hospital because my mother said she was here in the early seventies.
She was depressed had shock treatment but eventually managed to get on with her life without her children. My siblings and I continued to live with my father, a paedophile. Now in my fifties I feel like I have suffered through out my life and feel let down by the Australian authorities all those years ago.
I worked at the Mont Paek institution for six or seven months in as an orderly, specifically in the one-story surgical hospital with wings for both men and women. What a bizarre experience; I witnessed disgraceful and unethical practices at the institution.
I have pictures of myself with some of the patients. Unfortunately, none of the pictures online depict this surgical unit. My grandmother spent most of her adult life there, it was always hidden within the family, I have been trying to connect with any patients or carers to try and get an idea of what she may have went through.
Hi everyone My mother spent a lot of time in out out of this hospital would love to be able to get her medical records. Who would I contact please or do you have a email address. Kind regards. She was also pregnant with my uncle while admitted and discharged. From the records of her admissions and discharges it was a useless place. Gosh when I was yrs old I worked there at the front office and Was taught the switchboard by a Scottish lady and the CEO at that time used to work at Beechworth asylum , I drove past there yesterday.
Hi Hania, I would love to speak with you regarding the daily life there. Let me know if I can get in touch, thanks. Gosh when I was yrs old I worked there at the front office and some telephonist work,, I drove past there yesterday. I live in Bundoora and every time I dive pass it I all way wounder what is looks like in side. But now I know sorry for any spelling mistakes.
Hi, I was lucky enough to do my student Nursing experience here in the main building in the last two weeks before I was assisting the staff to transport the patients to the new hospital. I remember a lot about some of the patients and learnt a lot from the staff working there. Good to see someone else interested in the old place. As a child I use to ride my bike through there.
There was also a place called Cresswell. Came across a few squatters. I heard it walking the corridors a couple of times during night shift as a nurse. We were tuned to hear people moving around and check. Twice no-one there, very early morning. Thanks, it looked very different when working there. The dereliction makes it look very spooky. I thought it all gone now, except one building they kept? This is a Virtual Tour of Larundel from They had started to clear this area out.
Click on the hotspots to go to that area. My Dad use to be a patient at Laurundal and we use to visit him in the late ,s. Was not a nice experience l have seen a padded cell where he was locked up in with his blood on the walls.
There were lots of people just drugged so much they could not comprehend anything. I use to laugh at a lady who was singing to a man playing the piano and she use to lift her dress up and had no underpants on. My Dad came home for some weekends and was just so drugged.
Later he decided to never have his drugs again and he got to violent for any family member to be part of his life. Used to be a patient there. Have some great stories. There were babies in the main building on the upper floor. Called the academic or professorial building.
Mothers with pnd or other psych probs. Some did die there. Hi, I am doing some research regarding the daily life there. I am wondering if it was possible for me to have a few words with the owner about possibly taking some photos in this beautiful building with permission from the owner that is as i am very curious on what photos i could produce if i were to get permission nothing would be touched or destroyed or vandalised that you for your time.
Hi Jake, as mentioned in the comments below, it seems as though La Trobe University are the people to speak to. Good luck! My brother was admitted to Larundal in the early 70s, he had drug induced schizophrenia marijuana. The day i visited him he was at the local pub with the nurses when i arrived, they the nurses took the patients to the pub for drinks alcohol which they mixed with their anti-psychotic medication! Wouldnt be my idea of treatment. He slept in a dormitory style room, with around 20 other patients.
My brother was 20 years old at this time. He ran away from Larundel and shortly after this he went missing. My brother has now been missing for 30 years. That does sound like a very strange form of treatment. I wonder if it was officially approved? Hi Patricia, I am sorry to hear this. I am doing some research about the daily life there and would love to speak with you.
My email is duendest hotmail. I am a photography student and i am wanting to capture this place. Wondering if anyone knows who owns the building and if i am able to contact them about photography the building. It sounds as though La Trobe University are now responsible for a lot of the site. You could try contacting them, perhaps?
Try applying under the Freedom of Information Act, as Patricia suggests below. This is quite disturbing for me I was admitted in the early 70s and never knew what happend to my records or those who were ther.
Some of the buildings which were mont Park are now owned by la trobe uni, at this site there was mont Park Larundel and the alcoholics anonymous building. Hi , my mother was a patient t Larundal for over 20 years and was one of the last patients to leave, she then went to Mont Park and then onto a new mental health unit at StKilda. Hello Sue. Thanks for this comment, and I do appreciate your concerns.
Personally, I think the local council should raise some kind of memorial on this site. With respect, I feel that your criticism would be better directed not here, but rather towards the people who are actually responsible for the site. Just last night 2 friends and I went to visit Larundel for the first time.
But we walked all the way around the front building, hearing some odd sounds every now and then, nothing too creepy. But when we got to a point behind the front building we stopped in our tracks..
One of my friends held up their phone and it read exactly It was very echoey and eerie. Very surreal. Do you have any theories? Somewhere in these comments, one person suggested that the music was a prank being played from the nearby uni campus.
But to hear it out there in the middle of a field at midnight is definitely pretty odd.
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