GLENSIDE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING

Classified with National Trust and on Register of State Heritage Items.

Design:             Gothic with a moderately ornamented front.

Architect:        Robert George THOMAS, Government Architect.

Chief Contractor:      Charles Farr

Age:                 Opened on 18th May, 1870, having taken three years to build.

Cost:                £35,458

Dimensions:     Depth 248 feet; Breadth 232 feet:  Total Height 50 feet, with the tower excluding finial being 107 feet. Three stories along the front and two in each of the North and South wings.

Building Materials:         Walls of Glen Osmond stone.  Dressings and quoins of freestone from Dickerson’s Quarry, Tea Tree Gully.  Joists of rolled iron from Dowlais Works in South Wales, placed 2 feet apart with concrete in between.  Corridors and passages partly finished in paving and partly cement, with wooden flooring laid on small gum joists bedded in concrete.  Staircases of colonial slate.  Roofs have fireproof ceilings and constructed of timber covered with galvanised iron.

Additions:        Walls were erected in 1876/77 by Thomas MICHELLE on either side of the front entrance.  They had a HA-HA on each side making the effective height of the walls (which were only 6 feet above ground) 12 feet high.  The walls enclosed an airing court on either side, allowing the capacity of the building to be increased to 260 inmates.

Alterations:      The porticos on either side of the main entrance have been enclosed. Date not known.

Capacity:         As opened 200 inmates, 100 in each wing.  Initial occupancy 50 male patients of pauper class; 50 female patients were transferred in June 1871 and numbers increased yearly from then on.  In January 1876 there were 171 inmates.  The Administration Building ceased accommodating inpatients on the 31st July, 1972.  It had a new roof put on in 1989.

Airing court out from the SAFC

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