Wellard was a settlement created as part of the WWI Soldier and Group Settlement schemes. As the community grew, there was a need for medical facilities, so the settlers raised £431 to which the State Government added £3,399, enabling the construction of a timber three-ward hospital, which officially opened on 1st February, 1926.
Sadly, like many of the Group Settlement projects, Wellard’s population rapidly dwindled and by 1928, the number of patients using the hospital dwindled to 36 for the whole year, with nearly all of them being maternity patients. As a result, Wellard Hospital was dismantled the following year, and transported by sea to Esperance on the SS Kybra. There it was re-erected as the Esperance Hospital.
After a new district hospital was built in the 1960s, the old Wellard structures became nurses’ quarters and consulting rooms.
In 1989, the building was once again moved, this time to Taylor Street, where it became a very popular tearoom and iconic community hub. Following a refurbishment in 2017, the establishment reopened as Taylor St Quarters, serving local contemporary Australian cuisine.
Two moves in one hundred years is quite a record!
