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Lancashire County Mental Hospital
Founded in 1873 by the Lancashire Asylums Board.
New Lunatic Asylum for Lancashire - Whittingham
At Preston a special meeting of the magistrates of Lancashire has been held to consider the propriety of erecting another lunatic asylum for the county. It was stated that authority had been obtained by the General Finance Committee to purchase a site in Whittingham, near Preston, and that one of the instructions of the committee was that the asylum should accommodate 1,000 patients. The cost would be £20,000. It was resolved that a committee be appointed to provide an additional asylum, and that £20,000 be borrowed on the county rates for the purpose.
Source: The Builder 1869 Vol XXVII pp373 8th May 1869
Submitted by Alan Longbottom. |
The fourth County Lunatic Asylum at Whittingham standing on an eminence, erected in 1869, from designs by Mr. Henry Littler, architect of Manchester, at a cost of £338,300, is of red brick and forms a quadrangle of detached blocks of buildings with corridors radiating from the centre and is available [1913] 1,079 male and 1,035 female patients.
The buildings include a hospital for Infectious Diseases, and additional buildings were erected between the years . Within the grounds which cover a site of 60 acres, is a Church, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, and a tower. There is a private railway in connection with Grimsargh station, for the conveyance of Visitors to the Asylum.
Asylum Staff 1913
James Francis Gemmel, Superintendent
Ronald Murray Clark, Joseph John Guthrie Blandford, Robert Fenton Manifold, Walter Richard Hugh Smith and Rutherford Cramb, assistant Medical Officers
John A. M. Cameron, Pathologist
Rev. Walter Thomas Palmour, Chaplain
Leonard Cotman, Clerk to the Committee of Visitors
William A. Baldwin, Clerk and Steward. |
The Asylum was renamed Whittingham Hospital under the National Health Service. Most of the site has now closed, but "Guild Park" a medium secure facility is situated to the front of the site.
LINK to photographs of Whittingham Asylum
Page updated October 19, 2004
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Whittingham Asylum