High Royds Psychiatric Hospital

High Royds opened 1888 as the 'West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum' in the small village of Menston, Yorkshire.

Designed by architect Edward J.Vickers, the hospital encompasses a broad arrow layout with the male and female patients divided into opposing sides of the solid stone built administration block.

A fully self-sufficient site, the Asylum boasted its own railway line and train station, vast surgical operating theatres, a Church, lavish ballroom, onsite patient's shop, four separate farms, a bakery and a mortuary.

During the hospital's zenith, nearly 3,000 patients were living on site; sadly 900 recorded patients passed away in the asylum and were buried nearby in un-marked graves.

To address this issue the hospital purchased further grounds to accommodate the dead and later in 1963 was re-named from 'West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum' to 'High Royds'.

Scenes from a British movie 'Asylum' (which I would thoroughly recommend) were shot on location in High Royds, including the chilling final scene in which the protagonist throws herself from the 129 ft clock tower.

Unfortunately I never made it up to the clock tower but I did enjoy hours of wandering through the faded grandeur of the reception areas and into the more humble corridors that would have once been walked daily by patients doing their 'time'.

The asylum finally closed its doors in 2003 and after 5 years of solitude and decay, housing re-developers have begun conversion work.

The reception buildings however remain splendid and intact; as if unassailable to those who may attempt to disguise the original purpose that it was built for. In years to come the grade2 listed clock-tower will still soar above the surrounding landscape and for those who vividly remember the days when the institution reigned, the architectural stamp of such a feat can never be erased.