Night tours shine a light on Sunbury asylum’s dark past

A GRIM, dark and little-understood part of Sunbury’s history can now be relived, with walking tours of the town’s old asylum relaunched after a two-year hiatus.

Ghost tours at Jacksons Hill, site of former Sunbury asylum

A GRIM, dark and little-understood part of Sunbury’s history can now be relived, with walking tours of the town’s old asylum relaunched after a two-year hiatus.

The sprawling Jacksons Hill site was the home of the Sunbury Industrial School, before it was handed to the Lunacy Department in 1879, where several versions of mental health care under the guise of an asylum unfolded.

Tours bringing the routines and hidden stories of the asylum back to life will once again be held by Sunbury woman Julie Mills, starting on Saturday.

Ms Mills spent two years researching Public Records Office documents in a bid to better understand the history of the hospital, with extensive displays now forming the route of the two-hour night tours.

In an arrangement with the owners of the site, Victoria University, Ms Mills has access to seven buildings that form the asylum, including the old admission building, morgue, and men’s ward for the criminally insane.

She said the asylum’s place in Sunbury’s history was one she had built up a passion for.

“I moved to Sunbury 13 years ago, and I’ve been interested in this place from the start,” Ms Mills said.

“I’m particularly interested in the mental health system and nursing, and how it was viewed back then.

“A lot of the Sunbury asylum history is about stigma and it is something that was buried in family histories.”

Ms Mills has transcribed many admission remarks of patients and found photos and other snippets of their lives.

“It was important to me to bring some of the strands together and to have the photos and stories of some of the patients there for people to see to get a deeper appreciation of what went on here,” Ms Mills said.

While many approaches improved after the 1950s, tools such as straight jackets, padded cells and electric convulsive therapy treatment were all realities for residents at “The Hill”.

Those items are among tour relics and replicas.

Ms Mills said one of the biggest tragedies of the asylum’s history were people, many women, who were thrust into the facility with treatable conditions today, such as post-natal depression, while others were admitted for simply being drunk and disorderly.

Other patients were transferred from the state’s prison system after being deemed “criminally insane”, where they were kept in lonely cells.

But despite the misery that plagued many residents, the asylum had formed an unmistakably central part of Sunbury’s history, Ms Mills said.

“It was critically important to Sunbury as a community. It was the major employer and the town needed it as it grew,” she said.

The site currently homes a specialist school, radio station and community groups.

Ms Mills and husband, Greg, take tours for up to 30.

Click HERE to book, or phone [phone].