About Aradale

Take a guided tour of the institution that housed Victoria's mentally ill for over 140 years.

 

Aradale Asylum was an Australian psychiatric hospital, located in Ararat, a rural city in Victoria, Australia.Now a ghost "town", Aradale was once known as the Ararat Lunatic Asylum. Aradale and its two sister asylums at Kew and Beechworth were commissioned to accommodate the growing number of "lunatics" in the colony of Victoria. Construction began in 1860 and was opened for patients in 1865. It was closed as an asylum in 1998. At its height, Aradale had up to 900 patients yearly and is a large complex with up to 70 interesting historic abandoned buildings.