ÿþ<HTML LANG=en-GB> <HEAD> <title>The Derelict Miscellany :: West Park Hospital</title> <link rel="icon" href="favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon"> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon"> <META name="resource-type" content="document"> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html"> <meta name="keywords" content="west, park, noble, homes, flats, apartments, linden, crest, nicholson, redevelopment, buy, sales, development, asylum, hospital, mental, epsom, surrey, london, county, council, cluster, derelict, disused, lunatic, wards, water tower, admin, corridors, hollywood lodge, clifford smith, horton, estate"> <META NAME="description" CONTENT="Pictures, history and observations of a rambling derelict mental hospital Surrey designed by William C. Clifford Smith for London County Council as the last of the great Lunatic Asylums which formed the 'Epsom Cluster'. West Park is todfay being redeveloped as Noble Park, a development of new apartments and houses. 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Gregory"> <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="ALL"> <meta name="copyright" content="&copy; Dan Gregory"> <script type="text/javascript"> // JK Pop up image viewer script- By JavaScriptKit.com // Visit JavaScript Kit (http://javascriptkit.com) // for free JavaScript tutorials and scripts // This notice must stay intact for use var popbackground="#EEE9E9" //specify backcolor or background image for pop window var windowtitle="Derelict Miscellany: Images" //pop window title function detectexist(obj){ return (typeof obj !="undefined") } function jkpopimage(imgpath, popwidth, popheight, textdescription){ function getpos(){ leftpos=(detectexist(window.screenLeft))? screenLeft+document.body.clientWidth/2-popwidth/2 : detectexist(window.screenX)? screenX+innerWidth/2-popwidth/2 : 0 toppos=(detectexist(window.screenTop))? screenTop+document.body.clientHeight/2-popheight/2 : detectexist(window.screenY)? screenY+innerHeight/2-popheight/2 : 0 if (window.opera){ leftpos-=screenLeft toppos-=screenTop } } getpos() var winattributes='width='+popwidth+',height='+popheight+',resizable=yes,left='+leftpos+',top='+toppos var bodyattribute=(popbackground.indexOf(".")!=-1)? 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Clifford Smith <BR> <b>Abandoned:</b> 1993- (still running into complete closure) <BR> <b>Listed:</b> Water tower only, Grade II. <BR><b>Visited:</b> 2009-2010<BR> <b>Last Known Condition:</b> Mostly demolished; some buildings being retained for conversion, some derelict and others still in use (Aug. 2011) <br><b>Page Updated:</b> August 2011<BR> <br> Designed by William C. Clifford-Smith RIBA, West Park was the last of a cluster of mental hospitals to be built by the London County Council on the Horton Estate near Epsom between 1899 and 1924. The five hospitals; The Manor (8th London County Asylum, 1899, later a Certified Institution), Horton (9th L.C. Asylum, 1902) Long Grove (10th L.C. Asylum, 1907), St. Ebba's (Ewell Epileptic Colony, 1904) and West Park were designed and run as a self-sufficient community with its own farms, railway, laundry, workshops, greenhouses, cemetery, chapels, electric light and waterworks and sewerage systems. To a large extent the outside world needed neither concern, nor be concerned by the patients, who were to be kept apart from normal society except for those allowed parole of the grounds and town. <br><br> Construction of West Park began before the First World War but was interrupted by lack of workforce and resources. The part-completed buildings were used by the Canadian Military until the end of hostilities, after which the hospital reverted to civilian use and opened to patients in 1921. The remainder of planned buildings were completed in 1924 to a design of outlying villas surrounding a main complex of two storey ward blocks linked by long corridors converging at the centre where shared facilities such as the kitchens, recreation and dining halls, laundry and administration blocks were located. The Hospital, as was customary was divided into male and female sides, and different wards and villas on each side were assigned to different types of patient; convalescent, infirm, acute, chronic 'dirty', working chronic and so on. The hospital was designed to hold approximately 2,000 patients. <center> <br> <br> <a href="#" onClick="jkpopimage('hospitals/1945.JPG', 500, 350, '.'); return false"> <img alt="1945" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c215/storau-james/hospitals/1945.jpg" border="1" height="184"></a> <a href="#" onClick="jkpopimage('hospitals/wp.JPG', 880, 480, '.'); return false"> <img alt="." src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c215/storau-james/hospitals/wp.jpg" border="1" height="184"></a> <a href="#" onClick="jkpopimage('hospitals/2005.JPG', 620, 420, '.'); return false"> <img alt="." src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c215/storau-james/hospitals/2005.jpg" border="1" height="184"></a> <br> L-R: 1945 Map; c. 2003 Aerial Photograph; c. 2005 Map <br> </center><br> Attitudes to the care of mental patients changed radically over the next few decades, with the advent of new drugs and therapy and in 1948 with the unfolding of the NHS. The hospitals were no longer isolated or self-sufficient, and it was hoped that patients would stay for shorter periods, and that there would be fewer of them. To improve treatment and patient welfare, a social centre, new nurses' home and other facilities were added from 1950 onwards. By the 1980s, however the tide was beginning to flow in an entirely different direction: Care in the Community became the preferred way of dealing with patients with mental illnesses and mental hospitals were closed or stepped down in large numbers across the country, West Park and the others in the cluster falling victim slowly, ward by ward in the 1990s and 2000s. By this time, admissions had already fallen due to new policy but the hospital was not empty and the remaining patients had to go somewhere. Such patients were most likely moved to the remaining open wards, sent to care homes and smaller mental health units in the area or else discharged. At West Park today only a few buildings are in use by administrative and clinical services and just a small number of patients are treated there. <br> <br> <CENTER> <img src="stock/array1.jpg" border="1" > <img src="stock/array2.jpg" border="1" > <img src="stock/array3.jpg" border="1" > <img src="stock/array4.jpg" border="1" > <img src="stock/array5.jpg" border="1" > <br> L-R: Frinton/Occupational Therapy; Vacuum cleaners in Admin; Assisted bath ; Abington/Burford (sick wards); Water tower<br> </center><br> The rest, as large as a village, lies empty and rotting with the changing of many seasons. The wards are still strewn with clothes, books, shoes, even cards and letters mouldering in the stifling atmosphere of dust and fungal spores. In these shattered rooms are slowly vanishing the histories of people that society would still often rather forget.<br> <br> The following is a small selection of many hundreds of pictures I took on several visits in 2009-10 presented as a whistlestop tour of the hospital buildings as they then were. <br> <BR> <center> - <a href="hospitals/wp/wp1.html"><FONT SIZE=5>Gallery</font></a> -<br> Including: Admin - Rec Hall -Kitchens - Shop - District Health Authority - Abington & Burford - Denton & Dartford - Property Room - Clifton & Cranford - Padded Room - Creche (Lexford) - - Occupational Therapy - Janeford - Tunnels - Kardex Room - Guildford & Granton - Honiton & Hereford - Patient Social Centre - NHS Supplies Authority - Laundry - Stores - Water Tower - Cavell House - Staff Social Club - Lakeview Villa - Isolation Hospital <br> <br> <br><u><b><a name="demo">EPILOGUE</a></b></u></center><br> In late 2010 plans were announced to demolish most of the hospital buildings and develop the site as a complex of housing and apartments known as 'Noble Park' It is understood that admin, the water tower and some of the wards will be retained.<br>As of summer 2011, most of the central buildings had been demolished and the first new houses had been built. <br><br><i><center> This page is respectfully dedicated to the patients who lived and died at West Park Hospital, may they find peace. </i><br><br> <br> - <a href="westparkb.html"><b>Concise Bibliography</b></a> - <a indepth="true" href="index.html"><b>Home</b></a> - <br> <BR> </td><td width=13></td></tr></table> </TD></TR><TR><TD bgcolor="#EEE9E9" ALIGN=CENTER> <font size=1>Derelict Miscellany. 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