![Carrington Psychiatric Asylum – The Wall etchings [PHOTO ARCHIVE]](https://hauntedauckland.com/site/wp-content/uploads/20220821_141418-1-402x650.jpg)
We’ve spent almost 20 years exploring, investigating and documenting this 1865-built Carrington Unitech building. The location has been known by many titles through the decades.
Starting as the Whau Lunatic Asylum (or Lunatic Asylum at the Whau)
Later on, the Auckland Lunatic Asylum, Avondale Lunatic Asylum, Avondale Hospital, Auckland Mental Health Hospital, Oakley Hospital; Carrington Psychiatric Hospital; commonly Carrington/Oakley Hospital) was a psychiatric hospital on the Oakley Farm Estate situated in Point Chevalier, Auckland.
Building One now sits empty and becoming more derelict with each passing month, with no signs of refurbishment or saving at all.
Before Unitech moved in during the 1990s, the building complex housed the mentally unwell.
One area of interest to me is the formerly fenced-off security compounds that patients were able to use for well-secured outdoor activities.
in this area, bored patients would etch their names, thoughts, symbols and other personal artworks into the brick walls. Some would even etch out each day/week, to keep track of their time there.
For the past 20 years, I have been returning to the former hospital 2 – 3 times per year, to carry on journaling its time-line and monitor and document not only the haunted history, but to archive the personal mementos and remnants of those who spent so much of their life there.
Here is a collection of brick etchings photographed around the Carrington Psychiatric Hospital by myself, from around 2008 to Dec 26th, 2024.
It was always exciting to find one with a year. The earliest etchings I found, dated back to the 1950s.
Note: there will be repeats, as these photos were taken over quite a few years and many return visits.
Also worth keeping in mind is that in its time as a Unitech, it would be plausible that some might just be etched by students.
