Kingsbury Training Centre

Full description

In 1973 the Kingsbury Training Centre commenced as a residential institution catering for patients with an intellectual disability, located in the large Mont Park site in Bundoora (along with a number of other institutions).

The following extract from the Heritage Victoria website explains:
The former Mont Park/Bundoora Psychiatric and Repatriation Hospitals Complex consisted of seven hospitals on a site of 185 hectares. The site comprising the Mont Park and Strathallen estates was consolidated by the Victorian government by purchase and transfer from the Closer Settlement Board in 1909. The Mont Park Hospital commenced in 1910 with the building of the Farm Workers Block (later part of Kingsbury Training Centre). In 1912 the landscape gardener Hugh Linaker was employed to layout the grounds of Mont Park and other State mental hospitals. The other hospitals were gradually split off from the Mont Park administration to form separate entities. These were the Macleod Repatriation Hospital (1915), the Bundoora Repatriation Hospital (1920), the Gresswell Sanatorium (1933), Larundel Mental Hospital (1938 opened 1951), the Plenty Mental Hospital (1963) and the Kingsbury Training Centre (1974).

Kingsbury was closed by c.1995. The former residents of both Janefield and Kingsbury Training Centres whose support needs were assessed as high, were sent to purpose-built facilities, Plenty Residential Services community residential houses.