History
The Hospital was founded in 1819 as the Lincoln Lunatic Asylum, with the costs raised by subscription. The appeal was organised by a committee presided over by Lord Yarborough and including the Bishop of Lincoln, Earl Brownlow and three MPs. Subscribers were predominantly from the nobility, gentry and clergy of the county.
The original constitution stated that patients were to be treated “with all the tenderness and indulgence compatible with the steady and effectual government of them and every occupation which may divert the mind, win the attention and awaken the affections be cheerfully and readily promoted.” Patients were to be “persons of the superior class who shall contribute to the general expense of the establishment according to their ability and persons in more limited circumstances whose payments shall be relieved, when opportunity may offer, out of the disposable funds of the charity.”
The hospital is significant in the history of the treatment of mental illness for the pioneering work carried out on the abolition of mechanical restraint and isolation, particularly under Dr EP Charlesworth (1783-1853) and Dr RG Hill (1811-1878). Their enlightened methods were gradually adopted by other asylums. Early work was also carried out on the classification of patients according to the state of their health. Entertainment formed an important aspect of treatment, and board games and popular magazines were purchased for use by the patients.
Following the opening of the County Lunatic Asylum at Bracebridge Heath in 1852 (St John's), there was an increasing emphasis on fee-paying patients. The Asylum was re-named as The Lawn Hospital for the Insane in 1885. The Hospital was taken over by the National Health Service in 1948 and was finally closed in 1985. Stokes Coffee were the preferred bidder in 2012 when the building received offers. Their main headquarters which is currently in the town centre will relocate here, using the main function hall as a roastery and other areas for venue hire. The boutique hotel that sits next to it, Charlotte House Hotel used to be the Nurses accommodation. The many shops at the base on the cathedral side are being rented out to local businesses. The move from Stokes and interior restoration is still only 65% complete.
The Explore
This is one of those places that regardless of how much you research it, there is always new information to find. The first thing you notice about this place is it's dominance on Lincoln City. Standing proud at the top of the hill on Cathedral quarter, it neighbours Lincoln Castle and the Cathedral.
Well it happened to be 'Festival at the Asylum' - a steampunk festival which in recent years was actually held in the grounds of the Hospital. It was only this year that the promoters decided to use the grounds as a car park and businesses in Lincoln City centre became more involved, making the festival much bigger & too big for the grounds of this place to cope.
Me & @hamtagger had been checking this place out for a while, needless to say it was proving pretty difficult. We decided to pop down and check it out again, figuring that hundreds of people about would allow us to try and find entry without becoming too suspicious loitering around the building which normally doesn't have a huge amount of people traffic.
We walked around the whole building once, ending at the rear of the property where the Orangery used to stand and was confronted with an open door. What we didn't know at that point was that the new owners, Stokes Coffee had after 4 years sealed the deal to buy and had been given the keys allowing the new project manager to use that weekend summing up what work could be started and allowing contractors in to price up jobs for renovation. We had stood there for about half an hour, just watching, we saw 2 blokes walk in.
We walked in to the door and it was only a small room with a little raised stage in one corner and a city mural on the back wall. The first thing we noticed was a PIR. The alarm however was switched off. We were pretty careful in what direction to go in, we had 2 choices... upstairs or through a door which led to the kitchens. We thought sod it, if we get caught we can just say we saw them go in and tried to find them. We actually got around a pretty large amount of the building, it had that asylum feel to it. The only other place I have ever been in that has felt like that was High Royds. Despite decoration efforts you could imagine what it would have been like back in the day. Still, now it had Garish mustard coloured walls everywhere which were surprisingly pretty photogenic. Many details remained, fireplaces, oil filled radiators, door pediments, gables, architrave. Each floor had rows of single patient cells which some had been remodelled in past years when the council owned the building. We carried on carefully on the upper floors knowing that security (we had clocked them earlier in one corner of the building) were beneath us. We came across the main staircase, beautiful reeded hand rails, wrought iron balustrade and beautiful arches on both the ground and first floor. It was when we were here that things took a turn for the worst.
While I was snapping the staircase, HT had gone in to the room at the top marked Managers office. He was snapping away when he called me over to have a look, I didn't even get a foot in to the room when all of a sudden the alarms started going off. HT had moved further in to the room so I could take a look, setting one of the PIR's off. We were so shocked we just got our stuff and ran! Heading out the same way we came in, we didn't know if security would be alerted to the area in which the PIR had been activated or what. Finding a stairwell, we went down and came across a fire escape, literally right next to where security were. Making sure it was clear to go, we bolted and waited around. Nothing! We left the door ajar to go back later.
We went back later that evening, the back door and the fire escape door was still open! We knew about the alarm and the PIR's so we took some externals and decided that it will probably still be the same in the morning so Sunday came and we went back again. The doors were all closed! Both gutted, one of the main reasons we wanted in was for the main hall, named Laurence Hall. After finding a map of the place and realising that had we have gone through the kitchens on our initial entry we would have come across it much sooner. Despite the size of The Lawn, the kitchens were remarkably small in comparison.
Anyway, fast forward a couple of days and I decided to contact Stokes Coffee. We wanted to finish this off.. Knowing how many times we had come here and found no joy in getting in we knew the chances were pretty slim. Even to this day we have not seen another open door.
Turns out we were back in there the same day that I contacted them talking with the site manager. He was very intuitive, knew the history especially with regards to the exterior. We then realised that we would never have got around about 40% of it due to the amount of PIR's on site. Mentioning nothing about being here only a few days before, we were taking very few photo's of the areas of which we had already been, concentrating on the areas that we hadn't.
So, we finally got to see it all, which was well worth it in my opinion.
Explore :
The exterior
Dr E.P Charlesworth holds a significant position in his revolutionary approach to psychiatric treatment.
Interior
Second Visit : Permission
Remodelled Cells - Lincoln Council had remodelled the cells hoping to transform it in to a museum when they had owned the property.
This is what one of the inside of the cells looked like, not the typical 'cell' you would imagine and those shitty strip lights were everywhere!
This was used for wedding functions and will later be used as the main roastery for Stokes Coffee. I didn't like it, too modern and not in keeping with the rest of the building. There used to be a courtyard here.
This reminded me of the Ritz Cinema, just down the road in Lincoln.
On to the Main Hall - Hammerbeam roof, painted in wedgewood blue & white. Decorated with door pediments for that era.
Thanks for looking!
The Hospital was founded in 1819 as the Lincoln Lunatic Asylum, with the costs raised by subscription. The appeal was organised by a committee presided over by Lord Yarborough and including the Bishop of Lincoln, Earl Brownlow and three MPs. Subscribers were predominantly from the nobility, gentry and clergy of the county.
The original constitution stated that patients were to be treated “with all the tenderness and indulgence compatible with the steady and effectual government of them and every occupation which may divert the mind, win the attention and awaken the affections be cheerfully and readily promoted.” Patients were to be “persons of the superior class who shall contribute to the general expense of the establishment according to their ability and persons in more limited circumstances whose payments shall be relieved, when opportunity may offer, out of the disposable funds of the charity.”
The hospital is significant in the history of the treatment of mental illness for the pioneering work carried out on the abolition of mechanical restraint and isolation, particularly under Dr EP Charlesworth (1783-1853) and Dr RG Hill (1811-1878). Their enlightened methods were gradually adopted by other asylums. Early work was also carried out on the classification of patients according to the state of their health. Entertainment formed an important aspect of treatment, and board games and popular magazines were purchased for use by the patients.
Following the opening of the County Lunatic Asylum at Bracebridge Heath in 1852 (St John's), there was an increasing emphasis on fee-paying patients. The Asylum was re-named as The Lawn Hospital for the Insane in 1885. The Hospital was taken over by the National Health Service in 1948 and was finally closed in 1985. Stokes Coffee were the preferred bidder in 2012 when the building received offers. Their main headquarters which is currently in the town centre will relocate here, using the main function hall as a roastery and other areas for venue hire. The boutique hotel that sits next to it, Charlotte House Hotel used to be the Nurses accommodation. The many shops at the base on the cathedral side are being rented out to local businesses. The move from Stokes and interior restoration is still only 65% complete.
The Explore
This is one of those places that regardless of how much you research it, there is always new information to find. The first thing you notice about this place is it's dominance on Lincoln City. Standing proud at the top of the hill on Cathedral quarter, it neighbours Lincoln Castle and the Cathedral.
Well it happened to be 'Festival at the Asylum' - a steampunk festival which in recent years was actually held in the grounds of the Hospital. It was only this year that the promoters decided to use the grounds as a car park and businesses in Lincoln City centre became more involved, making the festival much bigger & too big for the grounds of this place to cope.
Me & @hamtagger had been checking this place out for a while, needless to say it was proving pretty difficult. We decided to pop down and check it out again, figuring that hundreds of people about would allow us to try and find entry without becoming too suspicious loitering around the building which normally doesn't have a huge amount of people traffic.
We walked around the whole building once, ending at the rear of the property where the Orangery used to stand and was confronted with an open door. What we didn't know at that point was that the new owners, Stokes Coffee had after 4 years sealed the deal to buy and had been given the keys allowing the new project manager to use that weekend summing up what work could be started and allowing contractors in to price up jobs for renovation. We had stood there for about half an hour, just watching, we saw 2 blokes walk in.
We walked in to the door and it was only a small room with a little raised stage in one corner and a city mural on the back wall. The first thing we noticed was a PIR. The alarm however was switched off. We were pretty careful in what direction to go in, we had 2 choices... upstairs or through a door which led to the kitchens. We thought sod it, if we get caught we can just say we saw them go in and tried to find them. We actually got around a pretty large amount of the building, it had that asylum feel to it. The only other place I have ever been in that has felt like that was High Royds. Despite decoration efforts you could imagine what it would have been like back in the day. Still, now it had Garish mustard coloured walls everywhere which were surprisingly pretty photogenic. Many details remained, fireplaces, oil filled radiators, door pediments, gables, architrave. Each floor had rows of single patient cells which some had been remodelled in past years when the council owned the building. We carried on carefully on the upper floors knowing that security (we had clocked them earlier in one corner of the building) were beneath us. We came across the main staircase, beautiful reeded hand rails, wrought iron balustrade and beautiful arches on both the ground and first floor. It was when we were here that things took a turn for the worst.
While I was snapping the staircase, HT had gone in to the room at the top marked Managers office. He was snapping away when he called me over to have a look, I didn't even get a foot in to the room when all of a sudden the alarms started going off. HT had moved further in to the room so I could take a look, setting one of the PIR's off. We were so shocked we just got our stuff and ran! Heading out the same way we came in, we didn't know if security would be alerted to the area in which the PIR had been activated or what. Finding a stairwell, we went down and came across a fire escape, literally right next to where security were. Making sure it was clear to go, we bolted and waited around. Nothing! We left the door ajar to go back later.
We went back later that evening, the back door and the fire escape door was still open! We knew about the alarm and the PIR's so we took some externals and decided that it will probably still be the same in the morning so Sunday came and we went back again. The doors were all closed! Both gutted, one of the main reasons we wanted in was for the main hall, named Laurence Hall. After finding a map of the place and realising that had we have gone through the kitchens on our initial entry we would have come across it much sooner. Despite the size of The Lawn, the kitchens were remarkably small in comparison.
Anyway, fast forward a couple of days and I decided to contact Stokes Coffee. We wanted to finish this off.. Knowing how many times we had come here and found no joy in getting in we knew the chances were pretty slim. Even to this day we have not seen another open door.
Turns out we were back in there the same day that I contacted them talking with the site manager. He was very intuitive, knew the history especially with regards to the exterior. We then realised that we would never have got around about 40% of it due to the amount of PIR's on site. Mentioning nothing about being here only a few days before, we were taking very few photo's of the areas of which we had already been, concentrating on the areas that we hadn't.
So, we finally got to see it all, which was well worth it in my opinion.
Explore :
The exterior
Dr E.P Charlesworth holds a significant position in his revolutionary approach to psychiatric treatment.
Interior
Second Visit : Permission
Remodelled Cells - Lincoln Council had remodelled the cells hoping to transform it in to a museum when they had owned the property.
This is what one of the inside of the cells looked like, not the typical 'cell' you would imagine and those shitty strip lights were everywhere!
This was used for wedding functions and will later be used as the main roastery for Stokes Coffee. I didn't like it, too modern and not in keeping with the rest of the building. There used to be a courtyard here.
This reminded me of the Ritz Cinema, just down the road in Lincoln.
On to the Main Hall - Hammerbeam roof, painted in wedgewood blue & white. Decorated with door pediments for that era.
Thanks for looking!
