There is history almost everywhere you look at our Wembley site, after all, it’s origins date back to the 1800s.
So, while walking around the old laundry building, just north-west of Sister Martin Kelly Centre, you’d be forgiven for missing this little piece of the past embedded in the exterior of the brick wall.
A small Metters stove, not much bigger than a mailbox is wedged into a void in the bricks in what is now called Baggott House.
Long-time MercyCare volunteer Bill Harris, who worked on the boilers for the laundry in the 1960s remembers those working in the laundry using the stove to heat up irons.
The door to the oven is still attached and still swings open.
Baggott House was built in 1910 as a laundry to cater for the St Joseph’s Orphanage run by the Sisters of Mercy.
From 1937 it also catered for laundry from St Anne’s Hospital.
Today the building is used by MercyCare staff for a variety of purposes.
