Yeehah, no more work until January. Woke up after a late one (getting massacred on Ghosts by 12 year old Americans) to find the sun’s out. Decide a little pre-Xmas derpy treat is in order, so it’s off round the M25 to Harperbury. Loved this place; it’s totally fubar, all rotten flooring and collapsed roofs, peeling and dripping at every turn. Wonderful.
History gratefully borrowed from PCWOX report….
Harperbury was opened in 1928 using converted WWI airfield hangars and known as the Hangars Certified Institution. Male patients lived and worked there and assisted in the building of the main colony itself, which was completed in stages between 1931 - 1936. The 'Middlesex Colony' as it was known, was part of an ambitious plan which included the building of Shenley Mental Hospital nearby although the colony was never fully completed. The name Harperbury Hospital was adopted in 1950.
The colony was designed by the Middlesex county architect, WT Curtis and anticipated becoming largely self sufficient with its own farm, gardens dept, laundry, boiler house, workshops for men and women, administrative blocks, staff housing, sports fields, a recreation hall and main stores. The villas were designed for varying grades of learning disability and some severe epileptics and were built around three loop roads which divided the site into male, female and children's departments (the last included a school block).
The hospital farm was closed in 1973 as the first part of the scaling down operation, and by 1974 a discharge programme had begun moving patients out of Harperbury and back into the outside world. The Kennedy-Galton Centre was moved away in 1987 and by the 1990s plans were in place to close Shenley, Napsbury and Harperbury hospitals. However, in 1995 and again in 1998, Harperbury experienced a temporary influx of patients from two other institutions that were closing. But the discharge program continued and by late 2001 there were only about 200 chronically sick patients in residence.
Merry Xmas and thanks for looking.
History gratefully borrowed from PCWOX report….
Harperbury was opened in 1928 using converted WWI airfield hangars and known as the Hangars Certified Institution. Male patients lived and worked there and assisted in the building of the main colony itself, which was completed in stages between 1931 - 1936. The 'Middlesex Colony' as it was known, was part of an ambitious plan which included the building of Shenley Mental Hospital nearby although the colony was never fully completed. The name Harperbury Hospital was adopted in 1950.
The colony was designed by the Middlesex county architect, WT Curtis and anticipated becoming largely self sufficient with its own farm, gardens dept, laundry, boiler house, workshops for men and women, administrative blocks, staff housing, sports fields, a recreation hall and main stores. The villas were designed for varying grades of learning disability and some severe epileptics and were built around three loop roads which divided the site into male, female and children's departments (the last included a school block).
The hospital farm was closed in 1973 as the first part of the scaling down operation, and by 1974 a discharge programme had begun moving patients out of Harperbury and back into the outside world. The Kennedy-Galton Centre was moved away in 1987 and by the 1990s plans were in place to close Shenley, Napsbury and Harperbury hospitals. However, in 1995 and again in 1998, Harperbury experienced a temporary influx of patients from two other institutions that were closing. But the discharge program continued and by late 2001 there were only about 200 chronically sick patients in residence.
Merry Xmas and thanks for looking.
