Yarra Bend Park
Coordinates: 37°47′43″S 145°00′43″E / 37.795407°S 145.011978°E
Yarra Bend Park is a 260 hectare (642 acre) park in the Melbourne suburb of Kew. Located 4 km northeast of Melbourne's CBD, it is the largest area of natural bushland left in inner Melbourne. The most notable feature of the park is the Yarra River which flows for 12 km through it. The park hosts two golf courses, two historic boathouses, sheds and a number of cycle and walking trails. It receives approximately 1.5 million visitors per year.
In 1904, the Queen’s Memorial Infectious Diseases Hospital was established along Yarra Bend Road, Fairfield. Later simply known as "Fairfield Hospital", it closed in 1996. The southern portion of the site now accommodates the Thomas Embling Hospital, opened by the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health in April 2000, with the majority of the buildings in the northern portion converted for use by NMIT Fairfield.
The Mission of St James and St John opened a Venereal Disease Clinic named "Fairhaven" in 1927 on the northern section of land previously occupied by the Yarra Bend Asylum, including the asylum's main buildings. The clinic closed in 1951 and the site was temporarily used by the adjacent Fairfield Hospital as staff quarters and storerooms.
In 1953, the former "Fairhaven" site was acquired by the Prisons Division for conversion into a female prison. HM Prison Fairlea was officially opened in 1956 and closed in August 1996.
In 1972 the Eastern Freeway was constructed through the middle of the park, crossing both the Merri Creek and the Yarra River. Parts of the Yarra were relocated and the Deep Rock Basin was completely demolished. This was highly controversial at the time, heightened by the destruction of rich history of not only Wurundjeri origin but European as well.
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