Report - Rauceby Hospital (Kesteven County Asylum) - June 2012

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Rauceby Hospital (Kesteven County Asylum) - June 2012

Visited with tumbles and LulaTaHula.

Some history, stolen from Wiki:

Rauceby Hospital, originally called Kesteven County Asylum, is a now-defunct mental institution in the parish of Quarrington, Lincolnshire. Building work was commenced in 1897, the facility was completed and opened in 1902.[1] After changing hands and names several times the main hospital building was closed in 1998 and abandoned for several years. From 2004 parts of the site underwent redevelopment to convert it into private housing.

The hospital was designed by GT Hine, construction began in 1897 and was completed in 1902. Operated by the Kesteven County Council the facility was renamed to Kesteven Mental Hospital in 1924 and to Rauceby Mental Hospital in 1933.
In 1940 the building was taken over by the Royal Air Force, renamed as No.4 RAF Hospital Rauceby it became a crash and burns unit under the control of nearby RAF Cranwell. During its tenure as a burns unit plastic surgeon Archibald McIndoe worked at the facility, along with other members of the "Guinea Pig Club".
The wartime Burns Unit was situated in Orchard House, built alongside the hospital orchard [4] - one of the last remaining parts of Rauceby Mental Hospital to remain in NHS use as offices for the former Lincolnshire South West PCT following the Mental Health Hospital's closure in 1998.
An isolation hospital, built on the western edge of the site was never used as such; instead it housed those residents working on the farm[5] and now functions as a 12-bedded in-patient unit for age 12-18 years within the child and adolescent mental health services under the control of the Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust).[6]
The main hall burnt down in 1947 marking the end of RAF control, the NHS took over the site the following year renaming it to Rauceby Hospital and returning patients that had previously been displaced.
The South Lincolnshire Community*& Mental*Health*Services NHS*Trust closed the main hospital building in 1997, whilst retaining Orchard House as the Trust's headquarters and Ash Villa on Willoughby Road as a Special School.

We headed to Rauceby after a complete fail at St Johns, and found more there than we first expected.
This place really is very far gone, which can be seen when compared to Turkey's report from 2006. All that remains now is Admin, the Chapel and some outer wards. It looks like all that used to exist in the middle was cleared ready to be built upon, but they then just gave up and left, leaving the rest of the place to rot away.
The chapel has suffered some fire damage in places, and contains some pretty unstable asbestos boarding which we probably should have realised before we proceeded to walk all over it. It was also very dark in there so made for some difficult photos!
Admin has been completely stripped of everything bar the floor. The clock faces and part of the mechanism remain however as you will see.
The wards have been mostly stripped except for one or two, which still have the odd feature throughout.
The whole place has seen quite a bit of vandalism too, which is consistant throughout.

I took quite a lot of photos, as I always do. Not sure how I manage it, but sorry for the large number of them!

Pics:

Admin:

Chapel:

Wards:

View from the lift tower:

Train station (still in use):

New development at rear of the asylum:

Thanks for looking!​