Front view of the Thomas Walker Convalescent Hospital, Concord West, Sydney, c.1893.

Albumen print photograph, 138 x 206 mm, laid down recto of a 19th-century album leaf of heavy cardstock; mount with fully contemporary caption in pencil: ‘Walker Hospital, Parramatta River’, and another in a different hand: ‘near Sydney’; a very strong print in excellent condition; mounted on the verso is another print in identical format (so probably by the same photographer) with a bird’s-eye view of the Hawkesbury River, also in fine condition.

The hospital was established in 1893 with funds from the estate of local politician, banker and philanthropist Thomas Walker (1804-1886), whose magnificent Yaralla estate, with its Italianate mansion (1857-58) designed by architect Edmund Blacket, was situated on the banks of the Parramatta River nearby. Today the site is used for the Rivendell Child, Adolescent and Family Unit.