Stone House Hospital (City of London Asylum), Kent
Stone House Hospital, formerly the City of London Lunatic Asylum, was a hospital and former mental illness treatment facility in Stone, near Dartford, Kent, in the United Kingdom. As of November, 2007 the hospital has been closed, and bids have been taken for its redevelopment to house luxury flats.
After 1892, the asylum was able to take "private" patients (patients whose fees were paid by their families, or from pensions). The influx of private patients resulted in a budget surplus, and enabled expansion and improvements of the asylum's facilities. In 1924 the facility was renamed the City of London Mental Hospital, and in 1948 it was taken over by the new National Health Service and became known as Stone House Hospital. A 1998 assessment by Thames Healthcare suggested that the hospital was not suited for modern healthcare; plans for the hospital's closure were initiated in 2003 by West Kent NHS.
Despite the time and day we visited, the place appeared to be full of builders, contractors etc, not to mention security who do enter the buildings, however we did not encounter them this time, until a near miss as we left the site!
After parking up nearby, and realising it was still only about 3am, we decided to head on in and make ourselves comfortable for the night, and would rise for some asylum goodness at about 6. Despite what you might think, sleeping in a derelict lunatic asylum can actually be pretty comfortable, I got a good solid few hours kip! Maybe not in ones that are more far gone, such as Whittingham, but still, give it a try. Apart from a spectacularly near miss with a security patrol on the way out, we had the place to ourselves and managed to see a lot. |