Where is whittingham hospital

The Great War brought major changes to the management of all of the Lancashire Asylums Board mental illness institutions. The Lancashire asylums were placed into a cluster with asylums in Cheshire and Derbyshire forming the Group 3 hospitals. Within group 3, the Winwick Asylum, near Warrington was designated as a vacating hospital with the others in the same group becoming receiving hospitals.

Winwick then became the Lord Derby War Hospital, used for the treatment of military casualties.. As well as being a receiving hospital for Winwick Asylum, Whittingham made available the use of the newly completed West Annexe for the War effort as the Whittingham Military Hospital between and The interwar period saw limited development at Whittingham, which was already a substantial complex.

The gas works to the south of the station and maintenance yard was closed and dismantled, A functional concrete water tower was constructed in to serve the hospital located on the site of the original mortuary, between the main building and West Annexe.

The hospital was however at some of its highest rates of occupancy and reached a capacity of over 3, patients with a reduced numbers of nursing staff due to military service. During this period and the subsequent creation of the National Health Service, the hospital became the largest mental hospital in the United Kingdom.

The NHS saw the abolition of the Lancashire Mental Hospitals Board, formerly the Lancashire Asylums Board, and the hospitals were passed to hospital management committees overseen by regional hospital boards and were no longer necessarily connected to their previous sister asylum in the way they had previously done. Naming of buildings changed in as the various annexes took on new identities. The main building became St. At Whittingham , new facilities were developed to include industrial and occupational therapy services and the hospital farms which had previously been a source of employment and economic support to the patients and hospital were gradually privately leased or sold after official guidance from the Ministry of Health dictated their disposal.

Use of the railway line ceased in as road transport gained prominence at the cost of railways and the building of a new power plant meant that the change of boiler fuel from coal to oil rendered it obsolete. The prospect of eventual closure, brought inevitable concern to staff, some of whose families had worked in the asylum for generations. New ideas and experiments for in psychiatry had come into vogue along with the large-scale introduction of anti-psychotic medication allowing formerly long stay patients to be discharged.

New ideas clashed with old traditions and regimes. Much of the west of the site became derelict and St. The tiles from the roof of Cameron House were removed which resulted in the rapid deterioration of the building although the adjacent sports field and staff club remained. The church was mothballed and Got Field Farm demolished.

The Guild Park unit was developed on a site adjacent to the site of St. The adjacent Frank Gardham House, formerly known as Fryars Villa remained in use however as did much of the staff housing and yard around the station site, although the station itself had been largely demolished after closure.

After remaining disused for almost 2 decades, the remaining sections of the site were demolished including Cameron house, St. The site of the hospital is presently being redeveloped for a major housing development, which has involved the creation of a new access road between the former drives.

The hospital cemetery, church, and admin block have survived and remain amongst the modern developments. Haighton Hall Farm and Whittingham Hall Farm complexes both survive in private ownership adjacent to the site. Former staff housing on Whittingham Lane in Goosnargh and Cumeragh villages remain in private occupation as do New and South Lodges, whilst main lodge survives in connection with Guild Park mental health unit.

National Archives — Whittingham Hospital. Railscot — Whittingham Hospital Railway. I traveled tp Lancashire Archives to see his files which included Army and Drs calling him.

If only they had served on the front line had their minds tortured by what they saw. Would they be in the same mind setting. I was told Herbert ran out of the house in his long johns with his gun The gun is questionable If only shell shock had been recognised I have just recently released his story on 2 facebook pages if any one is intetested.

It took me 30 years to find out what happened to him Herbert Hirst Brought in from the Cold.. I would be interested in finding out about my relative Eda Mellor who spent most of her life at Whittingham. As the Allies marched towards Berlin, the injured were repatriated to facilities like Whittingham to be treated. As Britain recovered after the war, the facility was officially renamed Whittingham Hospital and was taken over by the newly formed National Health Service.

In the s, Dr C. Parker and Mr Charles Breakall produced an early electroencephalograph EEG machine to record electrical activity of the brain. Today, this technology is used to help diagnose epilepsy and other brain disorders. A meeting of student nurses on 18 July resulted in a number of complaints about cruelty and ill treatment being submitted to management.

At first, the complaints were covered up but eventually, the hospital management committee launched an investigation. They discovered a number of major issues at the facility. These included patients being locked outside or in washrooms and cupboards, patients being dragged by their hair, patients being fed on only bread and jam, patients strangled with a wet towel until they passed out, patients being punched until they lost consciousness.

There was an incident in which two male nurses poured methylated spirits into the slippers of one patient and into the dressing gown pocket of another and set them alight.

Further to this, major issues were found within the buildings such as pest infestation, leaks and damp. There was also found to be a culture of petty theft on the wards and of serious fraud and embezzlement in some administrative offices. A shot of the site of the building much later and on another side to the above. It is in much worse state of dereliction. Whittingham Hospital went into decline after the investigation as parts of the facility were closed.

New medication in the s and s led to a reduction in mental health facilites in general in this period. In the early s, services at Whittingham began to be wound down and it eventually closed in A new, smaller mental health facility called Guild Lodge was built on the site and opened in The Guild Park housing development was planned for the site with new homes to be built however the economic downturn of the late s halted the development.

My grandmother was in Whittingham Asylum for about 30 years, she actually passed away in there when she was My father used to visit her every 6 weeks and taker out for lunch, sometimes she brought one of the other residents with her, we lived in Congleton in Cheshire.

It was a long journey before the M6 was build. She died in there aged I was a young child and used to be quite frightened going there.

I was born in Blackburn and used to go walking on Longridge Fell and Pendle … and I never knew this place existed. One imagines horrors in mental hospitals before the first effective drugs were discovered in the s, but the reminiscences people have recorded here paint a different, gentler picture, on the whole.

I wonder whether some mentally ill people would lead better, fuller lives living in managed care facilities rather than trying to cope on their own, isolated, dependent on medication, perhaps shunned by ignorant or cruel neighbours. We know that many of the homeless population have a mental illness that has contributed to their homelessness, and they need a community to make their lives worth living again.

I visited twice in the 3 yrs she was resident there. The place terrified me, I was only 8 at the time. They thought she was albino at first because she had bright white hair. Such sad scary memories of this place. Hello Michelle, I have just found this site and have no idea when you posted your message. I am shocked to read the previous messages on here.

I have wonderful memories of working on the Deaf Ward. The staff were lovely without exception. From the consultant Psychiatrist Brendan Monterio and formerly John Denmark who I met briefly and was also a lovely man and very invested in the Deaf Community , through to the nurses, support staff, cleaning staff and everyone else who worked there. We had Deaf members of staff working there who were in positions of authority and would never have stood for the abuse of Deaf patients.

All of the staff without exception treated the patients as we would have treated members of our own family. I have wonderful memories of working there. May your Mum rest in peace. Cath Roughley. He eventually suffered brain damage, which led to his confinement at Whittingham. John had a loving family and enjoyed frequent visits from them. I have another connection with Whittingham. Recently discovered my Great Grandmother was in Whittingham. For those asking about records I searched on Lancashire Archives website and found two mentions of her in the Whittingham records.

There existed approx. The ducts were checked and cleared of any asbestos contamination, broken out and backfilled. Technical Demolition Services worked alongside WYG Consultants as well as the Health and Safety Executive in a coordinated effort to manage the difficult issues around asbestos removal. In many areas of the site due to the poor condition of the buildings it was not possible to undertake asbestos surveys and therefore there was limited information available.

Inspections of suspected areas were undertaken by all parties using MEWP access where possible. It was found that the majority of asbestos was present within underground service ducts which could only be accessed once the buildings were demolished.

Therefore, controlled demolition was extremely important along with the method of removing asbestos from these areas which differed from standard procedures as agreed with the HSE. The recycling strategy for the contract is paramount to its success and a number of key areas were highlighted as follows:. One of the many challenges of this project is that of communication with the local community who have previously had many concerns over the site along with how any future development might affect them.

TDS held meetings with local stakeholders and issued newsletters to the local community in order to allay any fears they may have over the operation with continued communication being the focus.

Some local employment was undertaken and various local projects have been assisted. This included the recovery of a mosaic which details a coat of arms for the hospital which will be donated to a local historical group. Pre-Contract meetings and ongoing monthly meetings were established between all key parties Involved in the contract. These included:. Meetings were arranged to review works already undertaken, the Health and Safety concerns or issues, progress on each individual area of responsibility, community impacts, liaison and planned work over the coming weeks.

The meetings allowed planning for workforce numbers and plant to be implemented at an early stage to avoid any delays. Planning and execution for the contract were based upon the Daily Activity Briefings that were held each morning between all management teams present on site and all workforces involved. This enabled all parties to have a sound understanding of the activities to be undertaken on that day and what impact these activities had onto each other.