New heritage collection captures Silverstream Hospital's last chapter

Published on 24 February 2026

Tinsel garlands brightening up wards at Christmas time. Feathered visitors greeting patients at the entrance to the building complex’s cinema and creche. Craft projects showcasing the creativity and handiwork of patients and staff.

The recent addition of the Susi Williams Collection to Mahara Upper Hutt Community Archive allows a unique glimpse into everyday life at Silverstream Hospital during the 1980s, the facility’s final decade of operation.

As the hospital’s Medical Superintendent from 1980 to 1989, Doctor Susi Williams was both at the helm and at the heart of day-to-day staff and patient life. Photographs, diary notes, original issues of the hospital newsletter Getting Together Hilltop News, and more pull back the curtain to reveal a bustling place where medical care was, very much, community care.

This last chapter of Silverstream Hospital, with performances, music revues, cultural events, and a varied schedule of occupational therapy activities, stands in stark contrast to the facility’s beginnings as a military hospital during World War II.

Although the building complex has changed over the years, its legacy lives on locally, regionally, and internationally in the life stories of the patients who received care there.

Explore the Susi Williams Collection

Interested in contributing to our community archive?

Taking a walk down memory lane through Mahara Upper Hutt Community Archive is possible thanks to the many generous Upper Hutt locals, past and present, who have shared or donated items to keep our city’s history alive and accessible.

Please email us if you have photographs, ephemera, historical information about local clubs and groups, or other heritage items that help record the story of Upper Hutt’s places and people for future generations.