J Ward & Aradale Mental Hospital
- darkometer rating: 5 -
A former prison and lunatic asylum for the “criminally insane” in the small town of Ararat, Victoria, Australia. Constructed between 1859 and 1861 originally as a county gaol, it also saw a number of executions.
But then the building was converted into a psychiatric prison in 1886/87 and renamed J Ward to form a part of the Ararat Lunatic Asylum, later Aradale Mental Hospital. The former gaol had space for just over 50 inmates/patients and kept fulfilling its assigned role as a maximum security psychiatric ward for over a century. It was closed only in 1991. The rest of the much larger general mental hospital was also wound down around that time, with the last ward being closed in 1997/98.
J Ward was opened again in 1993, this time for the general public as a museum, though only on guided tours. Parts of the grounds of the former Aradale Hospital became an education and research centre (which has its own olive grove and vineyard!) in the early 2000s. There are tours here too as well as a “Discovery Centre”, with documents, letters, photos, newspapers, etc., which are probably only for a special-interest clientele.
J Ward can be visited by guided day tours, which take place daily at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. (on weekends and public holidays also at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., except at Christmas). They last ca. 1.5 hours and cost 17 AUD per person (some concessions apply) and should be booked online ahead of time.
At Aradale there’s a stronger focus on evening “ghost tours” (although J Ward offers some of those too, on Fridays and Saturdays), which are of no relevance here, though (like all things paranormal, which are excluded from coverage on this website). But they also offer Day Historical Tours, which should be of more interest to readers of this website. These, however, take place only on Sundays and Wednesdays at 10 a.m., they last ca. two hours, cost 22 AUD and should also be booked online ahead of time.
When I planned my trip to Australia for 2024, I had initially contemplated working into my itinerary a visit to Ararat and its two intriguing dark sites, but in the end I had to drop that idea for logistical reasons. I simply did not have the time for the long train ride, and train times do not match tour times well, basically making an overnight stay in Ararat necessary; and then there’s also the long walk between the two sites to factor in, which would have made it difficult to get to J Ward for the 1 p.m. tour after Aradale’s at 10 a.m. – so I gave up on the idea.
Hence I cannot comment on what the tours are like, but going by online reviews they seem to come highly recommended; and the photos I’ve seen look intriguing.
You can theoretically get to Ararat from Melbourne by train, but as I already said the times are not great and there’s that long walk between the two sites, so you’d really need an overnight stay in Ararat on the dates before the tours, if you want to do both on the same day (only possible on a Wednesday or Sunday); or, alternatively, split them over two days. Getting there by car would logistically be much better and more flexible and would also make the transfer between the two sites much easier.
Location: in the small town of Ararat, Victoria, Australia, ca. 190 km (120 miles) to the west of Melbourne (ca. 2.5 hours by train or car). The two sites, J Ward and Aradale Hospital, are physically quite apart, ca. 3 km (2 miles). J Ward is at the western end of Girdlestone Street, while Aradale Hospital is at the northern end of Heath Street – but the meeting point for the day tours is at the rear entrance, which is off Grano Street.
Google Maps locators:
J Ward: [-37.2791, 142.9302]
former Aradale Mental Hospital day tours meeting point: [-37.2774, 142.9572]