Rusten House

Rusten House began its life in 1862 as Queanbeyan’s second hospital, the original being a small building on the eastern side of the Queanbeyan River. The new 1860s building was designed by W.H.Downey, Government Architect and built by local tradesmen Daniel Jordon & Gibson, with stone from Simms’ quarry in the Huneysuckle¹, the location of which is currently unknown.

The Hospital and its services were funded by benevolent citizens who formed the Queanbeyan and District Hospital Society in 1846. The society was comprised of many prominent citizens from the region, the Gales, Campbells, Rutledges, Colletts, and Wrights; who had long associations with the hospital and establishment of the region. The Society employed Matron Rusten and her husband to house and care for those poverty stricken inhabitants of the district who fell victims of disease.³

The Hospital Society did not receive any government subsidies until 1865 and this often fluctuated, necessitating fees and charges to be levied on patients and other sources of income from pound fees and Police Court fines⁵. This set in place a century of local fundraising initiatives that the Queanbeyan and district citizens supported through carnivals and balls, to raise much needed funds, even during the depression era. This was also the time in which a new hospital was constructed and Rusten House was converted into nurses’ quarters.

The continued growth of the population in Queanbeyan’s region saw many additions and alterations to the Hospital’s facilities and grounds. In the early 1870s the large pines, oaks and elms were planted on the southern slopes of the site and in 1885 the ‘Fever Ward’ was constructed to the east of the original building as a separate entity to protect patients from highly infectious diseases, which was very helpful during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1919.

The local and regional Aboriginal groups often sought medical assistance from the Rusten House Hospital facility, some traveling long distances on foot and making camp nearby. The building is strongly associated with one of the region’s most respected elders Queen Nellie Hamilton, who passed away in care at the Queanbeyan Hospital on January 1, 1897.  

Rusten House was used as the region’s main hospital up until 1914 when a small eight bed facility was opened in Canberra. However Queanbeyan’s medical services and its newer well-equipped 1933 hospital were still in high demand by the capital’s growing population until a much larger hospital was built to service the ACT in the 1940s.

When Rusten House ceased to be used as a nurses’ quarters, it went on to house a variety of allied health services and at one time Rusty’s Café. Whilst the building had started to decline and had many alterations and additions, it was clearly an important part of Queanbeyan’s history.
In 1988 a permanent conservation order was placed on Rusten House and the original hospital building and its landscape setting was included on the NSW State Heritage Register in 1999.⁶  Many other buildings on the site have come and gone but Rusten House has survived on into the 21^st century to write a new chapter in its history.

Sources

Johnson, A.K. 1946 Queanbeyan District Hospital Centenary Booklet. ^{1,2, 3, 4, 5,}
NSW Dept.of Planning, Industry & Environment – Rusten House Heritage Listing. ⁶
Overall, N. 2019. ‘Coming Back from the Dead’ –  https://anoverallview.wixsite.com/blog
House, M. 2020. Oral history of Aboriginal use of Queanbeyan District Hospital
Image - Queanbeyan Hospital Carte-Devista c.1876 (courtesy of QBN and District Museum Collection)

Gallery opening hours are Wednesday - Saturday, 10am-4pm. Rusten House is staffed during these times, but may briefly close at lunch time if required.

From Sunday - Tuesday, Rusten House is closed, but workshop space is available for hire.

There is limited car parking on site, which includes one accessible parking bay, which is approximately 12 metres from the main door and 11.5 metres from the workshop door. There is ample street parking available on Collett Street during weekends.

For visitors with mobility requirements, ramps are provided for entering the gallery at both the main entrance and our workshop space, and an accessible toilet is available inside the building. We have resting chairs in our Reading Room Gallery, free public Wi-Fi and drinking water available for visitors.

If you have any other specific access requirements, please contact our team on 6285 6356.

4 July - 25 July
Mother and Child: See, Listen, Share, Reflect
 Lia Kemmis, Ezekiel Kemmis, Jodie Munday, Samuel Jones

This exhibition celebrates creative practice between mother and child, and considers ways of seeing, listening, sharing and reflecting between generations. Proud Wiradyuri artists Jodie Munday and son Samuel Jones explore matriarchal relationships through the lens of family, country, and place. “Once upon a time we were two souls inhabiting the same body. Now we are separate fully formed creatures roaming the earth.” Lia Kemmis and her son Ezekiel Kemmis explore the process of collaboration and connection through a shared lifelong commitment to artmaking. Their painterly works build upon one another’s ideas, highlighting the unique visual language that develops through making art together.

Image: Lia Kemmis, Umbilical butterfly, 2026, acrylic on plywood

4 July - 25 July
Who Am I Really
Frank Lindner

Masks may be the quintessential genre of psychological expression. Who Am I Really, is a collection of photographs exploring one way in which masks can work to conceal and transform identity, taken at a three-day folk festival. Subjects were asked to mark paper bags and wear them for portraits. They reveal and conceal, a performative identity shift into a liminal state in which the masked performer is neither fully themselves nor completely the character portrayed.

Image: Frank Lindner, Odd Camp, 2025, 63x37cm, digital photography

6 June – 27 June
Nostalgia
Leigh Penton

Nostalgia is a photographic exploration of memory’s fluid and unreliable nature. These images do not document the past as it was, but as it is remembered—softened, fragmented, and reimagined. Through muted tones, subtle textures, and everyday subjects, the work invites viewers to find personal meaning within familiar scenes. Moments appear suspended between presence and absence, echoing the way memories fade yet persist. This exhibition reflects on how identity is shaped through recollection, where truth and imagination intertwine. Rather than preserving the past, Nostalgia embraces its distortion, encouraging a quiet contemplation of what we choose to remember.

Image: Leigh Penton, What would I tell my 16 year old self, 2026, Photograph, 28x35 cm

6 June – 27 June
SYNERGY
Janet Heisner, Leslie Goddard, Myron Mykytiuch

Synergy is a visual feast with works produced by three artists and friends. Sculptor Myron Mykytiuch works with found pieces of wood bringing out the inner spirit of the pieces with paint, carving and perspective. Leslie Goodard’s works are bold, expressive paintings that combine dynamic use of colour with evocative and whimsical imagery. Janet Heisner’s works are extremely personal, depicting radiation masks that have been photographed and then imbued with colour and layered meaning. The exhibition brings together a diversity of works full of colour, meaning and intrinsic energy – Synergy.

Image: Janet Heisner, Resilience (2019), digital and acrylic on canvas

6 June – 25 July
Marks in Time
Leah-Kate Hannaford

Marks in Time is a small retrospective exhibition, looking back through 10 years of Leah-Kate Hannaford’s practice. Her work integrates pen and ink drawings, printmaking, acrylic painting and collage on paper and canvas. Through these mediums she explores themes of time, memory, and our complex relationship with the natural world we inhabit, with consideration to its power and our shared fragility. 

Leah-Kate Hannaford, Seed, mixed media on paper, 54x37cm

The gallery spaces and workshop are both available for hire.

Exhibitions

Exhibitions run for three week blocks with a week for installation and deinstallation and the hire period is from Wednesday to Saturday.

Cost

• Gallery 1 - Fever Ward Gallery (8.8m x 4.2m) (G1) - $265/week - minimum three week exhibition hire total = $795
• Gallery 2 - Petite Gallery (4.44m x 5.4m) - $135/week - minimum three week exhibition hire total = $405
• Gallery 3 - Reading Room Gallery - by invitation from Manager
• Gallery 4 - The Workshop Gallery - by negotiation with Manager

Workshops

The workshop space is available for meetings, exhibitions, art demonstrations, book launches and more. You can email cultural.services@qprc.nsw.gov.au to find out if we have suitable equipment available and to find out if the space will work for your event.

Cost

• Half day (3 hours) - $55
• Full day (6 hours) - $90
• Weekly - $180
• Weekend - $160

Terms and conditions

• Download the terms and conditions for exhibiting(PDF, 127KB)

Exhibitor Information Kit

• Download the exhibitor exhibitor information kit(PDF, 2MB)

Lodge an exhibition proposal online using the form below