Avoca Nursing Home

Avoca Nursing Home, in Randwick, was a private hospital. According to research done by the staff of the Northern Territory Department of Health, it was a place where children from the Northern Territory were sent, but little is known about its use as a children’s home or hospital. By 1988 Avoca Nursing Home had become an aged care facility.

Avoca Nursing Home was established in a lavish Victorian mansion called ‘Urara’. It had been built in 1879 by John See, who was Mayor of Randwick in 1880, 1881 and 1886, and became an MP in 1880. John See was premier of New South Wales from 1901-1904 and was knighted in 1902. After See’s death in 1907 the property was sold.

In a 1998 Heritage Study of Randwick, conducted by Perumal Murphy & Wu, Avoca Nursing Home was described as an aged care facility that was in excellent condition, despite features of ‘institutional vandalism’. The building was restored in 1998 by the owners, Thompson Health Care, and in 2014 remains an aged care facility, Milford House.