CONSTRUCTION work on a new youth remand facility has caused fears it might disturb bodies at a former Wacol mental hospital graveyard.

The 76-bed Wacol Youth Remand Centre (WYRC) is currently being built on the Wacol police complex, the former home of Wolston Park Hospital (once known as the Goodna Asylum).

A Queensland Police Service (QPS) spokeswoman confirmed the water mains work bordered cemetery three.

“Pipes were laid within an area that was previously built up with fill above the original cemetery ground levels,” the spokeswoman said.

“This work was conducted under full supervision of a certified archaeologist, and no gravesites were disturbed.

“The WYRC facility is constructed outside the boundaries of the former cemetery.

“QPS engaged the services of a certified archaeologist and used ground penetrating radar prior to construction; no gravesites were identified on the WYRC site.”

Historical newspaper reports wrote of how 2,800 bodies were removed from the site between 1945 and 1948.

Cemetery records accounted for around only 200 of those bodies who were taken to Goodna General Cemetery.

Death literacy advocate, and author, Lisa Herbert who has blogged extensively on the subject, said a mental hospital worker – Ferg Brindley – once told her that not all patients in the third cemetery were exhumed.

“He said they didn’t dig the whole coffin up; they dug down, smashed the top open, and took the remains out – and then put them in a box,” Ms Herbert said.

“Ferg said some coffins were still there, and whole corpses too.

“There is a mystery over the unknown resting place of hundreds, possibly thousands, of patients.”

Ms Herbert said publicly available data was sketchy regarding the whereabouts of human, coffin, grave marker, and gravestone remains.

A spokeswoman for Queensland State Archives said she was unable to say if/or how many bodies might remain in cemetery three as access to that data was withheld.

“Access is restricted for 100 years from the end date of each register,” she said.

The asylum’s first cemetery was in the flood-prone southwest corner of the site (now the Wolston Park Golf Club), while a second cemetery was built on higher ground.

The third cemetery was built when hospital development began in 1910.

The remains of patients were moved from the third cemetery because new wards were needed for soldiers broken by the butchery of World War II.

Find Ms Herbert’s blog at: https://shorturl.at/mxBCQ

Email: Lisa@thebottomdrawerbook.com.au