A History of London County Lunatic Asylums & Mental Hospitals

A History of London County Lunatic Asylums & Mental Hospitals written by

Ed Brandon and published by Pen & Sword Books - £16.99 - Softcover - Pages 224

From the Middle Ages onwards, London’s notorious Bedlam lunatic hospital saw the

city’s ‘mad’ locked away in dank cells, neglected and abused and without any real cure

and little comfort. The unprecedented growth of the metropolis after the Industrial

Revolution saw a perceived ‘epidemic’ of madness take hold, with ‘county asylums’

seen by those in power as the most humane or cost-effective way to offer the mass

confinement and treatment believed necessary.

The county of Middlesex – to which London once belonged – would build and open three huge county asylums from 1831, and when London became its own county in 1889 it would adopt all three and go on to build or run another eight such immense institutions. Each operated much like a self-contained town; home to thousands and often incorporating its own railway, laundries, farms, gardens, kitchens, ballroom, sports pitches, surgeries, wards, cells, chapel, mortuary, and more, in order to ensure the patients never needed to leave the asylum’s grounds.

Between them, at their peak London’s eleven county asylums were home to around 25,000 patients and thousands more staff, and dominated the physical landscape as well as the public imagination from the 1830s right up to the 1990s. Several gained a legacy which lasted even beyond their closure, as their hulking, abandoned forms sat in overgrown sites around London, refusing to be forgotten and continuing to attract the attention of those with both curious and nefarious motives.

Hanwell (St Bernard’s), Colney Hatch (Friern), Banstead, Cane Hill, Claybury, Bexley, Manor, Horton, St Ebba’s, Long Grove, and West Park went from being known as ‘county lunatic asylums’ to ‘mental hospitals’ and beyond. Reflecting on both the positive and negative aspects of their long and storied histories from their planning and construction to the treatments and regimes adopted at each, the lives of patients and staff through to their use during wartime, and the modernisation and changes of the 20th century, this book documents their stories from their opening up to their eventual closure, abandonment, redevelopment, or destruction.

This book looks at the various Asylums and Mental hospitals in and around London, the book looks at the history, reasons why we have them, how they were run, some of the treatments and care procedures that took place and finally some of the more well known cases that come from these hospitals. As I’m sure most people will know, people with mental health problems have never really had the best or most suitable help and care, always left near the bottom of the pile for concern. This subject always tends to be a bit grim reading, but what I enjoyed most about this book was the fact that the majority of the book is based around the hospitals with a number of patient stories thrown in, but I enjoyed the fact that the book was more about the hospitals and the way it was run. A fascinating book and one that people who like a bit of grim reading will enjoy.