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North Wales (Denbigh Asylum) - North Wales - August 2010

Visited with BignickB and ShadowNoob

You've seen it once, maybe twice, but now you've seen it thrice.

Good times all round, a great conversation there, a great one of the way back. This is one, despite what people think of it, that I've been wanting to see for a long while.

If you need a dosage of true, classic dereliction (Or electric convulsive therapy) then this is where you need to be at the moment. Never have I tread a floor so treacherous, seen a wall fall away so quickly or a foot go through floorboards as fast. Its dangerous, you've been warned, especially the upper floors, this place has some serious structural decay, but thats what we like boys and girls.

We hit this one early, Beardy arrived shortly after did his rounds and buggered off, which gave us the oppurtunity to act like lunatics.

The History (You love it)

The North Wales Lunatic Asylum was the first psychiatric institution built in Wales; construction began in 1844 and completed in 1848 in the town of Denbigh. The U-shaped Tudorbethain style hospital was built due to the spreading word of mistreatment of Welsh people in English asylums; The North Wales Hospital would be a haven for welsh speaking residents to seek treatment without prejudice or a language barrier.

Renovations and extensions were made at the hospital from 1867 until 1956, when the hospital reached its maximum capacity at 1,500 patients living inside her walls and 1,000 staff at hand. Physical treatments such as Cardiazol, malarial treatment, insulin shock treatment, and sulphur based drugs were used and developed in the 1920s and 1930s, and 1941-1942 saw the advent of electro convulsive therapy (ECT) and prefrontal leucotomy (lobotomy) treatments.

In 1960, Enoch Powell visited the North Wales Hospital, and later announced the "Hospital Plan" for England and Wales, which proposed that psychiatric care facilities be attached to general hospitals and favored community care over institutional settings. This was the beginning of the end for the North Wales Hospital and others like it; in 1987 a ten year strategy to close the hospital was formed. The North Wales Hospital was closed in sections from 1991 to 2002; most notable was the closure of the main hospital building in 1995.

This might need a self reply, so bare with me...

Starting in the main Building

























The Basement



Upper floors








Continued...