 Built on the site of a former lunatic asylum, some claim that the suburb is haunted by ghosts.The area of Lake Gardens was formerly open flat marshy land between Black Swamp and Winter Swamp, hunting land for the Wathaurong indigenous tribes.In the fledgling Ballarat of the 1860s, the land west of Ballarat Botanical Gardens was set aside for Prince of Wales Recreation Reserve to the south and to the north, "Reformatory Reserve" stretching toward what was known as the Town Common.