Ordnance Survey 1945-1965 mapping showing the five Epsom Cluster asylums In Epsom, Surrey, the former London County Council decided two create five suburban mental hospitals. These were mostly typical ‘lunatic asylums’ as they were initially known – large institutions to accommodate those with mental illnesses, disorders and learning difficulties. The Manor (1899), Horton (1902), Long…
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In 2015, Beyond the Point was given exclusive access to film and photograph inside the derelict site, with filming requests from the likes of the Discovery Channel declined. This was done with the intention of creating a feature film entitled ‘Secrets of Severalls’, although it never came to fruition due to time constraints and the…
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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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Officially opened in January 1906, St Cadoc’s Hospital is one of few original asylum buildings which is still used today. Although the majority of the site is sitting unused, mental health services for children, adults and the elderly are still provided on site, including in some of the original wards. In 1891 Newport was constituted…
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We recently embarked on a roadtrip across Scotland, focused on abandoned asylums and other hospitals. We photographed a total of eight, six of those being former asylums. The variations and similarities in their architecture was most interesting, with changes to asylum design being apparent. This varied from the streamlined design of the Georgian Royal Murray…
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Headley Court Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre (DMRC) was once one of the leading rehab centres in the UK. The 58-bed facility helped injured servicemen and women with rehabilitation and prosthetics and even went on to treat veterans. Corporal Andrew Garthwaite, was the first person in the UK to receive a mind-controlled prosthetic limb and spent…
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The Rainham/Purfleet area has been in use by man since the days of the so –called ‘Cavemen’. You can see some of the petrified tree trunks still remaining today from a 6,000 year-old Neolithic forest, opposite the very northern end of Wennington Marsh, in the Thames foreshore. However, much of Rainham came to use in…
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Also known as ‘Curtis & Harvey’s Explosive Factory’ this massive site feels somewhat like the Wild West and is accompanied by loads of sheep. It covers an enormous area of the southern Thames Estuary once threatened by Boris Johnson’s plans for an airport, but now remains as a private farm known for its historical significance….
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Talgarth is a small, quaint market town in mid-Wales and as of 2011 was home to less than 2,000 people. Driving through the narrow country roads you’ll eventually get to two large concrete gate posts – the original entrance to the former Mid Wales Hospital, known as Talgarth Asylum. Due to increasing demand on other…
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The Corringham Light Railway was a line built in 1899, opened in 1901, as part of access to the Kynochs munitions factory on the site of what is now Coryton. It went from the London Fenchurch/Tilbury/Southend line at Thames Haven down to Corringham and Kynochtown to allow for transport to and from the munitions site…
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