Graylingwell Hospital, West Sussex - February 2011

Had an amazing day out at Graylingwell in February, with some thoroughly decent chaps. I discovered on this explore that my handwriting is instantly recognisable as that of a teacher! Very pleasing. This asylum has long been on my list, and I'm so glad to have finally seen it.









































Thanks to all involved - 'twas a really enjoyable explore.

FAN! You've been a busy bee lately dude

Nice one.

I can't place the spiral staircase and the white glass-filled door two photos before it. What bit are they from?

ChrisR said:

Nice one.

I can't place the spiral staircase and the white glass-filled door two photos before it. What bit are they from?

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The spiral staircase is in the water tower!

You got up there in February? Impressive, I thought it had been sealed off, what with the new buildings attached to it and everything.

ChrisR said:

You got up there in February? Impressive, I thought it had been sealed off, what with the new buildings attached to it and everything.

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The staircase now only goes up three quaters the way now which is a shame. It was cut during the work to setup the district heating scheme so it probably happened at the end of last year.

Great to see your photos Lula! It was a really good day.

Good report Lula, was a good day indeed. Thanks for sharing.

Good to see it's still achievable after many years of high security.

Security did a good job though, that untrashed projector room is a bit special.

I went to the auction here when this place closed down, all of the lots were in the big hall.
Noting mede very much money, all the pianos were about 10 quid.Problem was all lots had to be removed on the day of the sale. I got some tools from the workshops.

Further up from the water tower is (or was ) a derelict farm, is this still there.The author of "Black Beauty" used to live there.

Cool stuff mate nice to see a site which has not been wecked by chavs

shadowman said:

Further up from the water tower is (or was ) a derelict farm, is this still there.The author of "Black Beauty" used to live there.

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Graylingwell Farm is still there. As far as I know it's grade II listed. It is to be retained along with the main hall, water tower, admin, chapel and some ward blocks. As an aside note, thought some of you might be interested in this estate plan from c. 1910 (please do not copy without permission):



Great photos by the way. I once spent the best part of a month cataloguing the records of patients from the 1900s, some complete with photographs. Some of the patients were as young as 12 or 13 and many didn't live long: pretty harrowing stuff. Contrary to popular belief however, most patients were not incarcerated for life and many stayed for less than a year until they were deemed to have recovered.

I was up here over Easter but walked straight into two security round the first corner just as I'd managed to dodge the outside PIRs. They then tried to scare me with some schlock about DNA evidence and calling the Police before attempting to pin the blame for a broken fence on me. Great fun.

Development is continuing apace of course: the developer's website is predictably sanitised and devoid of history. As Ian Sinclair once wrote,

The thing that disturbed me [about asylum conversions] was the absence of memory - all traces of what had been there before had been cannily erased, including the name.

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Great job of destigmatising mental illness, guys...

How long ago did site security stand-down here? I was last there 5 years ago, when the place was only half abandoned, and it was crawling in security guards! Security fencing and moveable spotlights abounded.

They didn't. Security still patrol the site and are quite on the ball most of the time. The present construction work has made access slightly easier, however.

Quality. Thanks for sharing.