Yet another place that nobody seems to visit unlike some of the places that are in a lot worse shape that people flock to like sheep! but anyway made for a eventful mooch with Fat Panda as usual!
We arrived here to find the alarms already blaring out and after a helping hand from The_Raw with a bit of improv we found ourselves inside and greeted by the main hall, the rest of the place wasn't in bad shape but nothing of interest really!
History stolen from The_Raw
Shelton Hospital was custom built and opened in 1845 at Bicton Heath, Shrewsbury. The building was designed by George Gilbert Scott (the great grandfather of the architect who designed Battersea Power Station and the Red Phone Boxes, Giles Gilbert Scott) and William B Moffat. The Asylum was designed in the Corridor Layout that was prolific at the time, being symmetrical so that males and females could easily be segregated. The total cost of the original building came to £17,000. The hospital opened on the 18th of March, 1845, with a capacity of 60 patients. By the opening, the patients requiring treatment had increased to 104. At its peak in 1947, the hospital had 1027 patients.
In 1968, a fire ripped through a ward killing 21 of the hospital's most severely mentally ill female patients. Most of the women were asleep and some were unable to move from their beds without assistance. The fire is thought to have been started by a discarded cigarette and it was found that none of the nurses were trained in fire evacuation procedures. A short BBC video from 1968 including interviews with a nurse and the hospital manager after the fire can be seen here: BBC News Player - 1968: Hospital blaze kills 21
Over the years the hospital had its own cricket and football sides, a band, a farm supplying food to the hospital, jobs for patients and even a brewery. In Victorian times these places were designed to be self-contained, it was an institution so people who were admitted there often ended up living there their whole lives. Often the staff also would stay there for years and their children would eventually become staff there so you would have generations of people who had worked at the same place. Some of the treatments carried out there 100 years ago would now be seen as appalling and primitive, but knowledge and understanding of mental health was not what it is today and the public’s attitudes took time to change. The grade II listed building, which has been much adapted over the more than 150 years since it opened, closed as a hospital in September 2012. Its role has now been taken over by a new mental health village nearby called The Redwoods Centre, home to around 200 patients. Shelton has now been bought by Shropshire Homes and is being turned into luxury flats, work starts in September 2014.
Cheers for looking
We arrived here to find the alarms already blaring out and after a helping hand from The_Raw with a bit of improv we found ourselves inside and greeted by the main hall, the rest of the place wasn't in bad shape but nothing of interest really!
History stolen from The_Raw
Shelton Hospital was custom built and opened in 1845 at Bicton Heath, Shrewsbury. The building was designed by George Gilbert Scott (the great grandfather of the architect who designed Battersea Power Station and the Red Phone Boxes, Giles Gilbert Scott) and William B Moffat. The Asylum was designed in the Corridor Layout that was prolific at the time, being symmetrical so that males and females could easily be segregated. The total cost of the original building came to £17,000. The hospital opened on the 18th of March, 1845, with a capacity of 60 patients. By the opening, the patients requiring treatment had increased to 104. At its peak in 1947, the hospital had 1027 patients.
In 1968, a fire ripped through a ward killing 21 of the hospital's most severely mentally ill female patients. Most of the women were asleep and some were unable to move from their beds without assistance. The fire is thought to have been started by a discarded cigarette and it was found that none of the nurses were trained in fire evacuation procedures. A short BBC video from 1968 including interviews with a nurse and the hospital manager after the fire can be seen here: BBC News Player - 1968: Hospital blaze kills 21
Over the years the hospital had its own cricket and football sides, a band, a farm supplying food to the hospital, jobs for patients and even a brewery. In Victorian times these places were designed to be self-contained, it was an institution so people who were admitted there often ended up living there their whole lives. Often the staff also would stay there for years and their children would eventually become staff there so you would have generations of people who had worked at the same place. Some of the treatments carried out there 100 years ago would now be seen as appalling and primitive, but knowledge and understanding of mental health was not what it is today and the public’s attitudes took time to change. The grade II listed building, which has been much adapted over the more than 150 years since it opened, closed as a hospital in September 2012. Its role has now been taken over by a new mental health village nearby called The Redwoods Centre, home to around 200 patients. Shelton has now been bought by Shropshire Homes and is being turned into luxury flats, work starts in September 2014.
Cheers for looking
