Mont Park is then compared to an inner metropolitan site, Royal Park Hospital for the Insane, in order to consider site activities and type of patient as factors that influenced the size of the respective sites. Annual Reports of the Lunacy Department, maps and images of the period are examined to establish the intention and function of the site. This paper examines the land of Mont Park Hospital to explore its meaning in the context of medical and bureaucratic beliefs of ‘working the land’ as a treatment for the ‘disordered mind’ and as solution to social problems. Although there have been a number of heritage reports of Mont Park, none have considered the site in terms of its size. The land was expansive and at 1289 acres was one of the largest sites for the treatment of mental illness in the western world. Mont Park Hospital for the Insane was established on former farmland on the fringes of the Melbourne suburbs in 1911. This paper, by examining the link between hospital landscapes and salubrity through the analysis of maps, images, medical journals and popular publications provides an insight into the history of their built environment and the influence of these ideas on the urban form of Melbourne. Similarly, the built environment of hospitals has focussed on the building and interiors with less emphasis on the site and outdoor grounds. Although the restorative power of nature has been discussed in relation to asylum sites and tuberculosis sanatoriums, its importance for city urban hospitals has been neglected. It also contributed to the gardens, parks and open space that characterised the early development of Melbourne and urban development elsewhere. This understanding of landscape is evident in the work of Frederick Law Olmsted and the building of asylums for the insane both in Australia and internationally. Formalized under the medical term ‘salubrity’, this approach to hospital sites prescribed views and beautiful surroundings as essential elements for the physical and emotional well-being of patients. They were linked to Romantic interpretations of the land as being able to influence human thought and feeling. Nineteenth century hospital sites reflected cultural and societal attitudes to health and landscape.

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