The Gables (1962 - 1985)

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The Edwardian brick two-storey residence was initially built as a private home, and later used as nurses' quarters for the Kew Mental Hospital. In 1962, it became a state-run children's Home for 25 children, boys and girls who were wards of state.

The Gables first accommodated children in dormitories on the first floor, but in 1965 alterations were made so that the children were accommodated in three fairly self-contained units, upstairs and downstairs in the main building and in a cottage at the rear of the main building. At the same time the Home's rostered child care workers were replaced with cottage mothers.

The Home was closed by the mid 1980s as part of the Department's rationalisation of residential child care resources.

The Gables was mentioned in the Bringing Them Home Report (1997) as an institution that housed Indigenous children removed from their families.