Anderson House & Garden

Built-in 1917

Anderson House (former female patient ward 7) is highly intact and stands northeast of Female Wards 1 & 2, facing Ellerton Drive. Purpose-built as an admissions ward for female patients, the building is domestic in scale and set amongst semi-formal gardens, reflecting its original purpose and the principles of moral treatment. Positioned on a rise, the building is accessed from the south via stairs.

In 2020 the building accommodates offices with minimal alterations to the original fabric.

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Features of Anderson House of state-level cultural heritage significance also include

• Main entrance stairs: render-capped brick walls; decorative metal balustrade; concrete steps

• Form, scale, and materials: symmetrical, U-shaped, one-storey brick building with a prominent hip roof clad with terracotta tiles, tall central ventilation fleche; front and rear verandahs with skillion roofs clad in corrugated metal, timber boarded ceilings, concrete floors, timber posts, and arched valance (front only); kitchen and boiler wing attached to rear verandah, with hip roof and roughcast chimney; face brick walls with concrete dressings; two bay windows fronting central wing; small timber-frames porches fronting the end wings; ventilated battened eaves; metal water goods; timber floors throughout, with concrete floors in bathroom areas; plaster masonry partitions

• Layout: central wing comprising sitting room and dining room; end wings accommodating single patient, attendant and storerooms (northeast) and large patient dormitory (southwest), with bathrooms at the northwest ends; visitors room with toilets fronting southwest wing

• Joinery: timber-framed multi-paned doors, fanlights, and windows; decorative pressed metal ceilings with moulded cornices and picture rails in visitors, sitting and dining rooms; sheet-and-batten-lined ceilings in dormitories and patients rooms • details associated with light and ventilation: roof lantern with operable windows over the northeast wing; tall, narrow sliding windows, with operable fanlights; small operable windows above verandah roof, with metal winding mechanism

• Details associated with patient management (security, safety, hygiene, moral treatment): rounded corners to walls; observation panes in doors to patient rooms; multi-pane observation window between the sitting room and dormitory; decorative metal window security grilles to patient's rooms

• Spacious open garden setting: sloping open front lawn with mature poinciana; open lawn and line of mature palms on the northeast side.