Previously I’ve mentioned the similarities between Ararat and Beechworth, they both had jails built to the same designs, well they also had mental hospitals built to the same general designs – Aradale in Ararat and Mayday Hills in Beechworth.
Aradale Mental Hospital (Lunatic Asylum) comprises a large main building and associated structures erected largely between 1864-67. The main buildings are constructed in brick, the structures are cement rendered brick Italianate with slate roofs. An engaged colonnade faces the top storey of the central block, which is linked by double storey bridges to long side wings with towers.
John James Clark is credited with designing the complex.
The main approach is from the south via a serpentine drive starting at the Italianate style Gate Lodge, which dates from 1866. The part single, part double storey dwelling was constructed of stuccoed brickwork with slate roofs. Features of the design include the gabled entrance porch, round headed and other window hoods, combination of roof forms, plinth and eaves detailing.
The Ararat Asylum was one of three (the others were Kew and Beechworth) built to replace the controversial Yarra Bend Lunatic Asylum in Melbourne. The asylum was built as a town within a town with its own market gardens, piggery and other stock kept on the grounds. It is surrounded by large grounds planted out as formal garden, farm and parkland.
The earliest buildings include the vast main building with its towers, a kitchen and dining room block, a billiard room, a library, school, a large multipurpose hall and 2,100ft of verandahs where patients could enjoy fresh air sheltered from winds and extensive remnants of the encircling ha-ha wall.
Later nineteenth and early twentieth century additions include the farm buildings, convalescent cottages, sun-shades and fever tent. At its height in the 1950s, it had about 900 patients and over 500 staff. The site has also many later buildings and structures, including smaller houses built for attendants after World War Two.
Today the complex is made up of 63 buildings ranging in age from the original wings built in 1860 to the modern forensic unit which was built in 1991. It was closed as an asylum in December 1993 (The Forensics Unit continued till September 1997).
In 2001 with a State Government grant of $7.4m, it granted places to 50 students and became the Aradale campus of Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE (NMIT) part of the Australian College of Wine, though they are only using a portion of the site and the rest is deteriorating.
It isn’t surprising that people say the building is reputedly haunted, it has all the ingredients – large sprawling 19th century buildings with extensive corridors, 1,000 odd deaths, the institutionalised insane.
For a short history of Aradale and its hauntings see
http://www.aghs.com.au/aradaleasylum.htmlA post on the Beechworth Asylum next.
Mayday Hills Hospital (Beechworth Lunatic Asylum) was established in 1867. The total cost of the Beechworth Asylum was almost 108,000 pounds. The plan of the Asylum, which was in the form of a giant E, matched that adopted at Ararat and at the new Metropolitan Asylum at Kew. It operated for almost 130 years until its closure in 1995. During this time it grew to incorporate nearly 53 buildings spread across an 11 hectare site, at its peak accommodating over 1,000 patients. 
Today, its gardens (planted as a botanical garden of exotic trees and shrubs in the late 19th century) and most of the infrastructure remains, part is now a campus of La Trobe University, accommodation and a restaurant run by the catering course of the uni, a Child Care Centre, and the base for Ghost Tours of the dilapidated sections.
Coincidentally, Mayday Hill was named by the then Lieutenant Governor, Charles Joseph La Trobe, after whom the La Trobe University is named, when he visited the area in 1852.
You can compare this Gatehouse to the derelict one at Ararat in the previous post.
While the design of the two institutions are remarkably similar, one major difference is the frontage, at Beechworth, a fountain was erected in 1887 with a large part of the labour being done by Asylum staff, it has since been removed due to drainage problems, while Aradale still has the remains of the fountain, its pond (currently dry) and balustrade.
Finally this photo taken at Ararat is what I'm calling my Narnia shot. It is so reminiscent of the lamp-post from "The lion, the witch and the wardrobe", and it can snow in Ararat!
Beechworth Lock-up
Beechworth Jail main entrance
The Ward was closed in 1991, and is now a museum. 
Harrow's Log Jail
