Aradale Mental Hospital

Aradale Mental Hospital
Geography
Location	Ararat, Victoria, Australia
Coordinates	37°17′S 142°56′E / 37.28°S 142.93°E / -37.28; 142.93
Organisation
Type	Specialist
Services
Emergency department	Not Applicable
Beds	900+[1]
Speciality	Psychiatric
History
Opened	1865
Closed	1998
Links
Website	www.aradale.com.au
Lists	Hospitals in Australia
Other links	List of Australian psychiatric institutions

Aradale Mental Hospital was an Australian psychiatric hospital, located in Ararat, a rural city in south-west Victoria, Australia. Originally known as 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 1864, and the guardhouses are listed as being built in 1866 though the list of patients extends as far back as the year before (1865). It was closed as an asylum in 1998 and in 2001 became a campus of the Melbourne Polytechnic (Previously known as NMIT) administered Melbourne Polytechnic's Ararat Training Centre.