Highroyds Hospital
High Royds Hospital is a former psychiatric hospital south of the village of Menston, West Yorkshire, England. The hospital is located in the City of Leeds metropolitan borough as the border with the City of Bradford metropolitan borough passes between the hospital and the village. It was first opened on 8 October, 1888 as the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum, and was closed in stages between 25 February, 2003 and June of the same year. A truly magnificent example of Vickers Edwards architecture, it is arguably the finest example of the "broad arrow" layout of asylum design.
The administration building, which is Grade II listed, is now considered something of a show piece at the former hospital, which is situated on a 300-acre (1.2 km2) site at the foot of Rombalds Moor.
It features an Italian mosaic floor in the main corridor which is intricately decorated with the Yorkshire Rose and black daisies - the latter of which provided inspiration for the title of a television screenplay, filmed at High Royds, as a tribute to sufferers of Alzheimers disease.
The hospital once contained a library, vast surgical operating theatres, a Church, lavish ballroom, onsite patient's shop, four separate farms, a bakery, a mortuary, a surgery, a dispensary, butcher's, dairies, a sweetshop, an upholster's, a cobbler's, spacious grounds and even a railway line and train station. The patients lived in Nightingale wards (named after Florence Nightingale), rather than the individual accommodation found in more recent mental health units. The hospital was formerly connected to the Wharfedale railway line by its own small railway system, the High Royds Hospital Railway.
During the hospital's zenith, nearly 3,000 patients were living on site; sadly 900 recorded patients passed away in the asylum and were buried nearby in un-marked graves. To address this issue the hospital purchased further grounds to accommodate the dead and later in 1963 was re-named from 'West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum' to 'High Royds'.
In its final years of operation, High Royds had been become outdated and unsuited to modern psychiatric practice. As part of Leeds Mental Health's £47 million reprovision process it was closed, with the wards being relocated to various community mental health units within the city of Leeds in the three years leading up to its closure. These include the Becklin Centre in St James' Hospital and the Mount in the city centre.
Since its closure, the site has been used as a film set for the successful television series No Angels and Bodies and scenes from the British movie 'Asylum' were shot on location here, including the chilling final scene in which the protagonist throws herself from the 129 ft clock tower.
The drama Diamond Geezer starring David Jason which aired on ITV1 in March 2005 was also partly shot at High Royds.
Leeds band Kaiser Chiefs have written a song ("Highroyds") about the former hospital. Three of the band (Nick Hodgson, Nick 'Peanut' Baines and Simon Rix) used to attend St Mary's Roman Catholic Comprehensive School, the school that faces High Royds Hospital.
The band Kasabian named their third album, West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, after the hospital after hearing about it on a TV documentary.
Further information, going into more detail is on this site:
http://www.forlornbritain.co.uk/highroyds.php
(Copy and paste into a new tab)
The administration building, which is Grade II listed, is now considered something of a show piece at the former hospital, which is situated on a 300-acre (1.2 km2) site at the foot of Rombalds Moor.
It features an Italian mosaic floor in the main corridor which is intricately decorated with the Yorkshire Rose and black daisies - the latter of which provided inspiration for the title of a television screenplay, filmed at High Royds, as a tribute to sufferers of Alzheimers disease.
The hospital once contained a library, vast surgical operating theatres, a Church, lavish ballroom, onsite patient's shop, four separate farms, a bakery, a mortuary, a surgery, a dispensary, butcher's, dairies, a sweetshop, an upholster's, a cobbler's, spacious grounds and even a railway line and train station. The patients lived in Nightingale wards (named after Florence Nightingale), rather than the individual accommodation found in more recent mental health units. The hospital was formerly connected to the Wharfedale railway line by its own small railway system, the High Royds Hospital Railway.
During the hospital's zenith, nearly 3,000 patients were living on site; sadly 900 recorded patients passed away in the asylum and were buried nearby in un-marked graves. To address this issue the hospital purchased further grounds to accommodate the dead and later in 1963 was re-named from 'West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum' to 'High Royds'.
In its final years of operation, High Royds had been become outdated and unsuited to modern psychiatric practice. As part of Leeds Mental Health's £47 million reprovision process it was closed, with the wards being relocated to various community mental health units within the city of Leeds in the three years leading up to its closure. These include the Becklin Centre in St James' Hospital and the Mount in the city centre.
Since its closure, the site has been used as a film set for the successful television series No Angels and Bodies and scenes from the British movie 'Asylum' were shot on location here, including the chilling final scene in which the protagonist throws herself from the 129 ft clock tower.
The drama Diamond Geezer starring David Jason which aired on ITV1 in March 2005 was also partly shot at High Royds.
Leeds band Kaiser Chiefs have written a song ("Highroyds") about the former hospital. Three of the band (Nick Hodgson, Nick 'Peanut' Baines and Simon Rix) used to attend St Mary's Roman Catholic Comprehensive School, the school that faces High Royds Hospital.
The band Kasabian named their third album, West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, after the hospital after hearing about it on a TV documentary.
Further information, going into more detail is on this site:
http://www.forlornbritain.co.uk/highroyds.php
(Copy and paste into a new tab)