Welcome to the incredible,
beautiful and frequently
unsettling world of
Hellingly Mental Asylum.
History
In 1894, East Sussex County Council undertook an exercise to ascertain various suitable sites with a view to building a new Lunatic asylum to expand upon outdated and insufficient facilities at Haywards Heath.
The village of Hellingly was chosen as a suitable location due to its idyllic location surrounded on all sides by rolling Sussex Countryside. At this time, it was common practise to site such places so that they afforded commanding views over pleasant landscapes, because they had a therapeutic quality that was deemed highly beneficial and would speed up recovery.
The renowned architect George Thomas Hine was appointed to design the building as he was a leading authority on the layout and construction of such buildings. The building was designed not just as an asylum, but as a whole self-contained community and had everything necessary to achieve this on a huge scale. Construction commenced in 1897.
The site, which forms part of Park Farm is located to the north-east of Lower Horsebridge near Hailsham, a short distance from Hellingly village and railway station. The site slopes to the south and the northern side is bordered by very pretty woodland. A minor road was re-routed away from the site to maintain security, seclusion and privacy.
The plan for the layout of the overall site of Hellingly incorporated two driveways – one from the south-west guarded by a lodge, lined with officers residences and the "Acute Hospital". the second driveway leads in from the south and is routed via the farm & workers quarters buildings and was used as a service drive. To the north of the site is a chapel and four "villas": one for male working patients, two for female working patients and another for mentally defective children. A small isolation hospital for infectious diseases was situated in the woods to the far north-west of the grounds, but has recently demolished and (rather disturbingly) a creche now stands on the site(!)
The layout of the main asylum buildings is to an “arrowhead” design, characterised by the way the corridors radiate out in a kind of “zig-zag” fashion from the central nucleus. This also handily ensured that there was only one way in and out of any area of the site and meant that the poor and unfortunate inmates where quickly rounded up before they could get a head start!
The smaller Acute Hospital mentioned before is known as Park House and enabled such cases to be treated separately and avoided the need for them to be accomodated within the main asylum building.
The majority of the buildings at Hellingly are of two or three storeys and constructed from red brick, with much use of reconstituted-stone lintels, multiple paned windows, banding, occasional round headed windows and red tiled roofing, with slate used for laundry and works buildings. This style is synonymous with G.T.Hines and appears in the majority of his designs.
The Administration Building is gothic style and is essentially a larger version of the admin block at Hertfordshire County Asylum. The villas and some residences differed in the use of pebble-dashing on the upper levels . The superintendent occupied Daeborough House, (later renamed as Bowhill) and this is the largest building on the main drive and has its own combined garage/servants cottage.
Hellingly Asylum had its own railway station which was used to bring in visitors, new admissions and supplies to the complex. This service ceased in the 1950's and the nearby Hellingly station is now a privately owned house.
The hospital electric tramway, which ran parallel to the main drive and had provided a passenger service from the railway station: Hellingly was almost unique amongst hospitals in doing so. The tramway was closed in the 1930's except for goods services to the hospital and the passenger car was subsequently used as a sports pavilion. The carriage of goods on the tramway lasted until the hospital was converted from coal-fired power generation to oil in 1959 and the former engine shed was adapted as a maintenance department store.
Later changes to the site included conversion of the Superintendent's residence to a nurse's home, closure of the farm, construction of Tennyson house and the staff social club. During the mid 1980's Hellingly was selected as one of five mental hospital sites in south east England to accommodate a medium secure unit, in this case known as Ashen Hill and located east of the main buildings and villas.
The first patients where admitted to Hellingly in 1903 and for many years the Asylum provided all manner of innovative treatment for mental disorders. Hellingly was one of many asylums in the south east to accommodate the West Sussex patients displaced from Graylingwell during World War I, causing some overcrowding.
Sadly, the building was deemed too costly and was closed down in phases over a period of about 6 years in the 1990's. At this time, the government decided to close the majority of the asylums in Britain and instigate the Care in the Community programme as being more beneficial to the long-term care of the afflicted. To a greater or lesser degree, the flux of “care in the community” entailed turfing “nutters” onto the streets to as good as fend for themselves and has resulted in a marked increase in violent or frenzied attacks since then.
The former officer's properties and Bowhill remain occupied by various departments of South Downs (?LOR) health trust services. Mental health services also continue to use both of the female villas, Ashen Hill secure unit and the villa for mentally defective children. The chapel and male villa appear to be disused but the chapel apparently remains in good condition. The social club continued in use until 2004 when it was damaged by fire and is now derelict. Some structures associated with the maintenance area of the male side also remain in use by a local bus company. Much of the ground surrounding the main building is informally used by local people and dogwalkers as parkland and recreation ground. Park farm and the married attendant's cottages are now in private ownership, with the former farm worker's villa now accommodating a nursing home.
Since abandonment, Hellingly is fenced off, patrolled periodically by security guards and is slowly decaying. It has been the target of vandals and taggers on numerous occasions and there are a lot of areas of the premises which have been subject to arson (particularly the admin block,central stores,kitchen stores and assistant medical officer's rsidences); others strewn with broken glass and porcelain. But there are parts of it which offer an eerie and unspeakable beauty: the peeling paint and fusion of indoor and outdoor elements, combined with thought-provolking and (remarkably sympathetic) professional graffiti offer some breathtaking views.
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[CLICK HERE] to see an account of our visits to Hellingly
[CLICK HERE] for Agent Holmbush's account of the visit to Hellingly
[CLICK HERE] for Kaptainklutz's account of an encounter with the Water Tower
[CLICK HERE] to view just photos of Hellingly
[CLICK HERE] to see what may be ghosties!
[CLICK HERE] for an aerial view of Hellingly & to identify specific parts of the campus
[CLICK HERE] for information on how to find the place yourself
[CLICK HERE] to return to the ghost-of Home page
[CLICK HERE] to return to the ghost-trains Home page
[CLICK HERE] to get in contact with us
[CLICK HERE] to view other links about Hellingly
[CLICK HERE] to find stuff using Keywords
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