Changing roles for historic site

Pyrenees House in Ararat has undergone many transformations in its almost 140-year history and has always been a place of care.

Pyrenees House opened as Ararat and District Hospital in 1886 during the Victorian gold boom. More than 100 years later, in 2021, it became East Grampians Health Service Community COVID-19 Vaccination Clinic.

In the years between operating as a hospital and a vaccination clinic, the iconic building, renamed Pyrenees House in 1937, has also been a home for aged-care and education services.

The building has been the subject of refurbishment during the past 100 years, the most recent upgrade a new paint job in 2015 to prepare the building as an education centre.

The health-care group took on responsibility for the provision of COVID-19 community vaccinations in the district and the health service selected Pyrenees House for use as the vaccination clinic.

Health service chief executive Nick Bush said with vaccination increasing and an expectation community immunisation would become a long-term EGHS responsibility, the organisation would establish a new clinic site.

“Pyrenees House will then return to its previous use as an education centre and space for the community,” he said.