Apparently I live next to an abandoned mental asylum, so inspired by Mercie 's trip to Centralia (the inspiration for Silent Hill), I went searching for my own little piece of hell on earth.
Severalls Hospital in Colchester, Essex, UK was a psychiatric hospital built in 1910 which first opened in May 1913. The 300-acre (1.2 km) site housed some 2000 patients and was based on the "Echelon plan" - a specific arrangement of wards, offices and services within easy reach of each other by a network of interconnecting corridors. This meant that staff were able to operate around the site without the need to go outside in bad weather. The architect of the asylum was Frank Whitmore. Unlike modern British hospitals, patients in Severalls were separated according to their gender.
Villas were constructed around the main hospital building as accommodation blocks between 1910 and 1935. Most of the buildings are in Neo Georgian style, with few architectural embellishments.
Psychiatrists were free to "experiment" with new treatments on patients seemingly at will using practices now considered unsuitable such as electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) and the use of frontal lobotomy. These practices reached their climax during the 1950s. In her book 'Madness in Its Place: Narratives of Severalls Hospital, 1913-1997', Diana Gittins notes that often women were admitted by their own family, sometimes as the result of bearing illegitimate children or as they had been subjected to rape. As they would not always (or were unable to) carry out daily tasks, they were considered to be "mad" and some were even subjected these procedures.
More hell on earth here.
Severalls Hospital in Colchester, Essex, UK was a psychiatric hospital built in 1910 which first opened in May 1913. The 300-acre (1.2 km) site housed some 2000 patients and was based on the "Echelon plan" - a specific arrangement of wards, offices and services within easy reach of each other by a network of interconnecting corridors. This meant that staff were able to operate around the site without the need to go outside in bad weather. The architect of the asylum was Frank Whitmore. Unlike modern British hospitals, patients in Severalls were separated according to their gender.
Villas were constructed around the main hospital building as accommodation blocks between 1910 and 1935. Most of the buildings are in Neo Georgian style, with few architectural embellishments.
Psychiatrists were free to "experiment" with new treatments on patients seemingly at will using practices now considered unsuitable such as electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) and the use of frontal lobotomy. These practices reached their climax during the 1950s. In her book 'Madness in Its Place: Narratives of Severalls Hospital, 1913-1997', Diana Gittins notes that often women were admitted by their own family, sometimes as the result of bearing illegitimate children or as they had been subjected to rape. As they would not always (or were unable to) carry out daily tasks, they were considered to be "mad" and some were even subjected these procedures.
More hell on earth here.
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Thanks so so much for the beautiful comment you left on my new set!
I'm glad you liked it!
xoxo
Renna