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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This humble little chapel in Tillingham, on the Dengie Peninsula in Essex, was completed in 1867 for the Perculiar People. They were strict Puritan group founded in Rochford in 1838, and this religious trend spread through Victorian Essex. They attended day-long services on Sundays which often involved prayer and hymns in strict fashion, complete with…
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The Esse theatre was constructed in the 1930s – no surprise given its style, and was officially opened on the 5th of September 1938, with ‘The Hurricane’ being the first film to be projected onto the cinema screen. The huge cinema had seats for 2,200 theatre goers and even had a 50 seater restaurant on…
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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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In 1889 Kesteven became its own authority and was required by law to have any asylum so the search began to find a suitable site for building one. Sixteen sites were shortlisted and the land at Rauceby was the cheapest so the 112 acre site was chosen. Five different architects were asked to submit designs,…
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Situated just half a mile away from Coalhouse Fort, East Tilbury Battery, was constructed from 1887-93 and supplemented Coalhouse Fort as part of the Thames’ coastal defence system. It housed six breech-loading guns, mounted on disappearing carriages. There was two 10-inch guns in the centre, and two pairs of 6-pdr guns on either flank. At…
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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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Along Salt Lane in Cliffe lies an overgrown pair of air raid shelter tunnels installed to protect industrial workers of the Alpha cement works in WW2. It is suggested that the two shelters remaining today were actually two entrance-ways into a larger shelter capable of holding hundreds of people, although they seem to be of…
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