In 2023 we set off on a road trip through Wales, with the aim of documenting the country’s former lunatic asylums. These institutions were commonly built towards the end of the 19th, and early 20th centuries, for councils to look after the mentally ill. Today most of the sites lie either ruined or boarded up…
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Hellingly Hospital began construction in 1898 and first opened in 1903 as East Sussex County Lunatic Asylum. Originally, East and West Sussex shared a joint asylum, being St. Francis at Haywards Heath, when the county was still one body however when it split into east and west in 1889, East Sussex needed its own institution,…
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Lisnevin Training School was a secure borstal that looked after adolescent boys who were either on remand or had been referred from more open training schools. Opening in 1973, the site could accommodate up to 40 boys, many of which were either violent or were at risk of absconding. Surrounded by a seven-meter fence, this…
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Play from 10:06 to watch our footage of Gartloch Asylum If you’ve ever watched a horror film or read a scary book about a psychiatric hospital in the middle of nowhere, you might picture somewhere like Gartloch Asylum. The imposing administration building with its two striking towers still stands today and is one of the…
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The Murray Royal Hospital in Perth is Scotland’s oldest surviving asylum and was one of the grandest built. The now derelict asylum was named after local man James Murray who funded the construction of the hospital after inheriting “considerable wealth.” Designed by William Burn, the original plans were based on designs for West Riding Asylum,…
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High Royds in Menston is one of the most well-documented and now infamous of the county asylums to be built, instantly recognizable by its looming clocktower. In 1885, some 300 acres of land was purchased and over the next 3 years construction work began to build one of the more lavish asylums ever constructed. The…
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Roundway Hospital dates back to the 1840’s when a committee of Justices approved plans for an asylum in Wiltshire. Forty-eight acres of land was purchased and architect Thomas Henry Wyatt was brought in to design the asylum, who went for an Italianate style. Stone for the buildings was mined locally and slate for the roof…
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At Beyond the Point we love a challenge and we’re embarking on what might be our most ambitious yet. We’ve set ourselves the task of documenting every remaining ‘lunatic’ asylum building that remains in the UK. County asylums were psychiatric hospitals built in the 19th and early 20th centuries, emerging from revolutionary Victorian laws making…
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Whitchurch Hospital opened as the Cardiff City Mental Hospital with the medical superintendent, Dr Edwin Goodall, reluctant to refer to it as an asylum. Due to Cardiff’s rapidly growing population an asylum was needed ad in 1898 construction started on this £350,000 hospital, which opened its doors in 1908. Whitchurch was a large asylum which…
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Today this former asylum is owned by the University of West England (UWE) and is home to hundreds of students who studying medical courses. With various hospital wards and beds – all of these are mockups used for training but fortunately the university have retained many features of the 140 year old building. St Peter’s…
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