Difference between revisions of "Portal:Featured Article Of The Week"

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|Title= Claybury Hospital
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|Title= Kew Lunatic Asylum
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|Image= kew1885.png
 
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|Body= In the 1880s the Justices of the County of Middlesex planned to build a fourth County Asylum to relieve overcrowding in the Hanwell, Friern Barnet and Banstead Asylums. The Claybury Hall estate at Woodford Bridge, Essex, was purchased in January 1887 as the site for the new asylum at a cost of £36,000. Other lands bordering the estate were also bought, and the total cost of the 269-acre site was £39,415.
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|Body= The Kew Asylum was first opened in 1871 as a ward of Yarra Bend. For a short period Kew was also known as the "Metropolitan Asylum". Many of Kew's early patients were transferred from Yarra Bend and the Collingwood Asylum. In October 1872 Kew was proclaimed a separate institution from Yarra Bend.
  
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Claybury Hall was situated on the top of Tomswood Hill and its grounds included about 50 acres of ancient woodland and 95 acres of open parkland, ponds, pasture and historic gardens which had been designed in 1789 by the landscape architect Sir Humphrey Repton.
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After World War II there was a period of significant change in the treatment and prognosis for people with a mental illness. Drugs such as Lithium carbonate (discovered in 1948 by Australian psychiatrist Dr John Cade) and chlorpromazine (discovered in 1950's) lead to improvements in treatment. Thus many people with a mental illness could in many cases be treated in hospital for a shorter period and return to the community. The Mental Health Act of 1959 designated hospitals providing short-term diagnosis and accommodation as "psychiatric hospitals". Therefore any institution could have a section designated as a mental hospital for long-term or indefinite hospitalisation and a section designated as a psychiatric hospital for short term diagnosis and treatment of acute psychiatric illness.
  
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An architectural design competition was held, and won by George Thomas Hine, the acknowledged leading asylum architect in the country. His plan - a pioneering 'compact arrow design' - laid out the asylum in a smaller and more logical layout than previously used.
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In 1962 the decision was made to no longer house acute or short-term patients at Kew and therefore it was formally proclaimed a Mental Hospital under the Mental Health Act of 1959. Up until this time, Kew Mental Hospital was still colloquially known as 'Kew Asylum'.  [[Kew Lunatic Asylum|Click here for more...]]
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In March 1888 a granite-railed tramway was laid from the gate lodges (under construction) to the main site so that building work could begin in June. Two-thirds of the main buildings were to be erected on the summit of the hill but, first, some 100,000 cubic yards had to be sliced off to create a level platform of 12 acres. This took six months to do and, unfortunately, it then proved difficult to find firm foundations in the spongy subsoil. Building work then stopped altogether in December 1888 when the main contractor became bankrupt.  [[Claybury Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
 
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Revision as of 04:24, 9 August 2020

Featured Article Of The Week

Kew Lunatic Asylum


kew1885.png

The Kew Asylum was first opened in 1871 as a ward of Yarra Bend. For a short period Kew was also known as the "Metropolitan Asylum". Many of Kew's early patients were transferred from Yarra Bend and the Collingwood Asylum. In October 1872 Kew was proclaimed a separate institution from Yarra Bend.

After World War II there was a period of significant change in the treatment and prognosis for people with a mental illness. Drugs such as Lithium carbonate (discovered in 1948 by Australian psychiatrist Dr John Cade) and chlorpromazine (discovered in 1950's) lead to improvements in treatment. Thus many people with a mental illness could in many cases be treated in hospital for a shorter period and return to the community. The Mental Health Act of 1959 designated hospitals providing short-term diagnosis and accommodation as "psychiatric hospitals". Therefore any institution could have a section designated as a mental hospital for long-term or indefinite hospitalisation and a section designated as a psychiatric hospital for short term diagnosis and treatment of acute psychiatric illness.

In 1962 the decision was made to no longer house acute or short-term patients at Kew and therefore it was formally proclaimed a Mental Hospital under the Mental Health Act of 1959. Up until this time, Kew Mental Hospital was still colloquially known as 'Kew Asylum'. Click here for more...

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