Mont Park And Bundoora Park

by Erik Westrup
2 years ago
Near Macleod, AU

98 views

This walk takes you through the extensive area once known as the Mont Park Hospital complex which covered an area of 1289 acres and was established in 1911. Other hospitals and other buildings were later established in the Gresswell, Larundel, Plenty and Bundoora Park areas.

Apart from housing patients with psychiatric and mental conditions, it also cared for returned and repatriated soldiers from the two world wars and operated a large farm with animals and food crops. There were many buildings built over the years with many of these still standing and in use today, mainly by La Trobe University as administrative and student accommodation buildings but also as residential premises in the Springthorpe Housing Estate.

LaTrobe University was established in 1964 on the 660 acre Mont Park farm land in the south east area of the complex, and an alternative site for the farm was obtained a little further out on Plenty Road. The hospital complex was decommissioned in the late 1990's and the Springthorpe Housing Estate was developed on the remaining site from 2002. Some areas were also retained as or created into, nature conservation reserves.

A train line was also built in 1911 from the newly built McLeod Railway Station to the Mont Park Railway Station in what is now the Ernest Jones Reserve. This rail line operated only a few days a week and was operated only as a goods line. It was closed and dismantled in 1964 and small remnants of the line can still be viewed along a path which follows part of the original railway line route. A narrow gauge service rail line was also built behind the Terraces.

The walk is an easy one of approximately 8.3 kms and offers the opportunity to see many of the original buildings and the route of the old railway line. It also goes through the Gresswell Habitat Link Nature Conservation Reserve and parts of Bundoora Park (including Bundoora Homestead and Bundoora Farm and Cafe).