Retreat to the castle

In Australia, fewer than one in three expected deaths takes place outside an institution, but eighty per cent of people say they would rather die at home.

wwww.homehospice.com.au

A few kilometres from the town of Armidale in northern New South Wales, a gravel driveway sidles around the curve of a small hill and ends in a yard of barking dogs at the back of a low dark-brick home. In 1968 Hugh and Katherine Baden* came to live on this property, one hundred and sixty acres of undulating grazing land. In the decades that followed they wove themselves into the fabric of the community: working, volunteering, socialising, pursuing various hobbies, putting three children through local schools.