On a recent outing to research local resources for homeschool history lessons, we opted to explore the infamous 150 year old Wolston Park Mental Asylum a building now left to rot and decay . We took an interest in delving into its appalling history of placing children into adult asylums where they were subjected to ongoing horrors of electroshock, rape, forced pregnancies and abortions, abuse, torture, forced medicated control, silencing and likely paying the ultimate price of being murdered. While the government made an official apology it’s important to note here that these abuses began allegedly just two years after the asylum opened in 1865 and continued for over a century, reported as being a duration of 155 years with 50,000 inmates having been lodged within its infamous care . The Asylum was closed in 2001,
Survivors speak out , lifting the lid on their experiences within the asylum, haunted by events and the beastly goings on of staff , doctors, and people charged with caring for them as wards of the state . Many made wards of state had no cause to be there, but were forcibly detained into state care.
In 1869 plans for the site of the asylum indicated that a cemetery was established at the far western side of the grounds where the Woogaroo creek met the Brisbane River. With its own morgue and 3 cemeteries , It’s reported that as many as 2800 people were buried in trenches which acted as mass graves.
There were as many as 2300 tiles found marked with numbers which correlated to individual inmate numbers. Mass exhumations of corpses occurred but only the intact ones of under 50 years interment, these were placed in small boxes and moved to a large trench. These allegedly belong to the 200 moved to goodna cemetery.
A Mass gravesite memorial for the victims of Wolston Asylum , purported to contain 200 memorials was created at the rear boundary of Goodna cemetery , it contains only the numbered tiles representing a few of the victims , however plaques on the memorial point out that no actual remains were located within. The location of where these exhumed 200 were finally laid to rest in a trench remains a mystery but is claimed to also be within the property of the Goodna’s cemetery .
The remains of the other remaining 2300 inmates are allegedly not known ? The original morgue has been torn down, the smoke stack remains and can still be seen for miles a haunting blemish on the landscape. The river bank to the rear of the decaying building still contains markings of one of the first burial grounds of Wolston asylum.
Wolston asylum now known as The Park is in the suburb of Wacol . It is flanked by the river at its rear and the Wacol Correctional centre prison to its north east . A beautiful and thriving Golf Course and club house to its more southern aspect. A beautiful grounds to visit if you don’t Mind the increasing population of somewhat territorial kangaroos . 🦘 (forewarned is forearmed move on slowly and carefully avoiding proximity if they puff muscles up or grunt at you! )
There are numerous other buildings of brick and sandstone on the site still in use today and security guards traverse the expanse regularly with access to the public limited. As long as Wolston Park Asylum, remains a fascinating urban legend people will continue to try to enter the buildings and attempt to communicate with its lost inmates.
On Visiting the memorial site to confirm its existance, and pay my respects to the many missing souls lost, I felt a deep sadness , but this was quickly overcome by a feeling of overwhelming heaviness . Both my son and I spoke up to tell each other it felt hard to walk there as if some pull or force was trying to anchor us to it. We felt at several points almost rooted to the spot unable to shake the deep feeling which intensified as I stepped closer to the tiny plaques of commemoration to photograph them. What could be causing it? We don’t know but it was intense an ethereal sensation to be frank.
And I’m at a loss to understand the gravity of this sensation existing here given I’m Fully aware that no actual bodies were transported to the site ? So without them how can it be actually haunted? Are the markers all that is left for souls to attach to? 🤷🏻♀️ without delving into any further ghostly /spectral or soul attachment speculations I wonder if the feeling that overcame us wasn’t also just the full gravity and horror of bearing witness to the physical representation of the horrors reported through research into the history of the asylum and its horrifically unfortunate inmates.
After all Such a window of stark gravity into the terrifying reality of life for Wolston inmates was bound to leave a pall right?
I’ve since been made aware that many purported ghost hunters and self proclaimed social media icons have taken to filming here at night and attempting to converse with the tortured lost souls of Wolston asylum through the use of apps . Similarly many clips and tales can be found by urban adventurers on YouTube and other social sites wheee people have breached the security in place and entered the decaying institution , now bare of any floorboards to walk on making the infatuation with exploring the site a dangerous dice if explorers should misstep!
While ghosts and ghost hunting are interesting in their own right I can’t shake the feeling that these souls wish only to be left alone unbothered and at peace in death, as they could not be in life.
Perhaps we could do more to find their bodies? And pay them the ultimate and lasting respect of reuniting families with their actual last resting place.
I’m sure the government would just like this grand old institutional building to fade into the night and into history, gathering all her odious infamacy beneath her skirts and taking them with her as she is slowly reclaimed by the earth, perhaps in a few more centuries all her secrets will have expired with her perhaps urban legend and exploration will keep them alive .
I hope they never think to rebuild anything on this site, the walls would surely talk again!
kaledo-art
stormborns
ellievsbear
origamiaround
baratheonpilled
prguitarman
titsay
