[1] The north-eastern buildings within (today's) Riverside or Bloomfield North precinct were designed in 1910, approved for construction in 1922 as the First World War intervened.

By October 1925 the Admissions and Convalescent Sections on the eastern part of the site had been completed and accommodated 270 patients from other overcrowded institutions.

Between 1925 and 1931 the wards, Administration, service buildings workshops, kitchen, Recreation Hall and Nurses Home and staff accommodation were constructed on the western part of the site.

The upper precinct adopted the symmetrical layout as a master plan in the form of an axis with lateral wings in sympathy with the site's topography.

Administration and management used the lower Riverside precinct for admissions and classification of patients and treatment of those expected to recover in a relatively short period.

Those with little hope of recovery were regarded as long-term patients and accommodated in the upper Bloomfield South precinct, according to their gender and illness.

All the buildings and wards at the hospital were specifically designed to reflect the proportions and style of domestic architecture to ally the impression of being an institution of confinement.

[1] The setting in which patients were treated was considered to be of utmost importance and much attention was paid to the planting of both formal gardens and of parklands across the hospital property.

The hospital was planned to be a virtually self sustainable community with patients growing vegetables and fruit and in earlier times tending the dairy and piggery.

Bloomfield was well equipped to keep abreast with these new therapies having a purpose built operating theatre included in the schedule of hospital building completed by 1931.

[1] Recreational and occupational therapy developed as important forms of treatment at Bloomfield from 1929 and the value of sporting activity was recognised from early on.

The wards were unusual in that they were two of the few attached to Mental Hospitals and as such posed the architectural challenge of ensuring patients remained confined and isolated from the broader population while still providing access the therapeutic effects of sunlight and fresh air.

Overcrowding remained a difficulty after the war and there was little progress in the development of effective treatments or the improvement of facilities at the Orange Mental Hospital.

[1] During the 1950s new behaviour stabilising drug treatments such as largactil and lithium and the provision of community care to patients were implemented to reduce the demand for mental hospital accommodation.

The emphasis creating links with the local community through sporting and cultural activities was continued at this time with the establishment of a Dramatic Society which involved patients and staff in regular productions.

The Hospital comprises two distinct groupings of buildings and their setting of landscaped and park like gardens and playing fields[1] The earliest buildings developed on the site lie on a ridge ( north-south) to the east of the site and comprise the original Admissions Section ( Designed 1910) and Convalescent Section ( designed in the Inter-war period).

The Admissions Section comprises a two-storey central administration building built in the Federation Arts and Crafts style and two single storey wards.

The western side of the administration block features a columned entry porch and adjacent Dutch gables which are edged with stone copings.

The cricket pitch (established in 1928), a series of playing fields (developed in 1938), a bowling green and clubhouse, ( 1960) and a 9-hole golf course are located in this area.

[4] Moving away from the wards the gardens give way to park like plantings of trees ( such as the Monterey pine (Pinus radiata), elm (Ulmus procera), pin oaks (Quercus palustris) and poplars (Populus sp.))

and remnant original woodlands vegetation (single apple box, snow gum (Eucalyptus pauciflora) trees).

While some of the formal ward gardens are no longer intact the plantings of many of the trees and shrubs throughout the site remain retaining the park-like quality of the grounds.

It has high historic, associative and aesthetic significance as an example of a mental hospital designed according to the philosophy and treatment regimens of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century.

[1] The hospital has a strong association with Manning and Eric Sinclair who were pioneers in the treatment and management of mental health in NSW in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries.

[1] Bloomfield Hospital was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 10 March 2006 having satisfied the following criteria.

[1] The place is important in demonstrating aesthetic characteristics and/or a high degree of creative or technical achievement in New South Wales.

Bloomfield Hospital in its landscape setting is of high aesthetic significance as for its landmark qualities within the Orange area.

The domestic scale of the buildings and their village like layout in the park like setting are an outstanding and intact example of a hospital specifically designed to promote recovery and rehabilitation of the mentally ill. Bloomfield was the last of a series of dedicated mental hospitals designed along these lines in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries and has special and enduring aesthetic values.

The built form, layout, landscape setting of Bloomfield Hospital provides evidence of and insight into the evolution of mental health treatment and underpinning theories from the late Nineteenth Century to the present day.

It is also likely that the inclusion in the hospital complex of purpose built TB wards for mentally ill patients was also uncommon.