Kew Mental Hospital Construction Tramway

摘要

During the early years of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales the only local accommodation for the insane was in prisons. In 1846 government funds were provided for the erection of an insane asylum near the junction of the Merri Creek with the Yarra River five kilometres north-west of Melbourne town.1 The 'Yarra Bend' asylum site was effectively a gently sloping peninsula, enclosed by the meandering course of the river and the creek, formed by ancient flows of basaltic lava that forced the Yarra's channel against the higher, but softer, Silurian rock to the south and east.2