You could hear the cows mooing.
“In the seventies I was a 3rd year student nurse here at the Maitland Hospital. The sale yards were located opposite the Hospital where the current carpark is now. On night shift in the summer, the french doors would be open (no air con then). You could hear the cows mooing and sheep bleating. This never seemed to bother anyone, somehow it was somewhat reassuring. Patients still slept and we felt safe.”
From 1859 to 1987 Maitland’s stock saleyards were located next to the Family Hotel on High Street and opposite parts of the Maitland Hospital. Initially established and owned privately, they were acquired by West Maitland Borough Council in the late 1880s, and remained a Council responsibility until their closure in 1987.
Sketch of the sale yards, 1895.
(Posted by Peter Smith to the Facebook page You know you’re from Maitland when)
Aerial photograph showing the hospital and the sale yards from Maitland - Opportunity Unlimited, about 1961.
Aerial photograph showing the hospital and the sale yards, 1950s.
Sale days were marked by the sounds and smells of the stock, the parked vehicles that often blocked streets, the calls of the auctioneers, and the bustle of a marketplace.
Neville Chant’s recollections of the sale yards early in the twentieth century, evoke some of this bustle:
‘Sale day at the market was always huge. Monday was saleyard day and the area from the Family Hotel opposite the hospital to where the roundabout is today was nothing but saleyards extended to the railway line. ... People today couldn’t imagine the numbers that turned up on sale days. Auctioneers in full-blast really got into the business and it got fiery at times when there were mistaken bids. The public did a roaring trade in food and drink, and behind the pub all the sulkies and buggies were parked.The stock was brought in by drovers on Sunday along Belmore Road and on Saturday across the bridge along High Street to the pens. North Coast stock and pigs, and sheep from the west, were unloaded at Telarah and a drover and dog would bring them to the pens.”
Click on the images below to get a larger view and hover over the image for full captions.
The nurses’ residence, built in 1928, was directly opposite the sale yards. Nurses like Christine Thompson who lived in the residence, remember the market days. Her memories echo those of others.
In 1938, for example, there was a lengthy debate about whether the Council should construct an abattoir on the site. Those opposed to the abattoir argued that, already, ‘filth blown by westerly winds from the West Maitland sale yards into the hospital grounds was causing annoyance’. The Maitland Hospital Board responded that they didn’t want to get involved in the dispute and that, indeed, the sale,yards did not cause too much of a problem. Although, somewhat cheekily, they went on to observe, the sale,yards
…were a disturbance to the nurses seeking rest after night duty. “Cow day” as they named it, was dreaded for this reason.
The Hospital Board also expressed concern about heavy parking on sales day.
(Maitland Mercury, 17 December 1938)
There were also memorable, slightly comic, moments. Sue Williams came across the 1936 article below when she was sorting through the papers her Mum kept. Her Mum, Nancy Martin (nee Finney), trained and worked as a nurse at the hospital from 1933 to 1944.
Maitland Daily Mercury, 30 March 1936, p 7.
Originally posted: 28 Sep 2021
Updated: 23 Jan 2022