Leybourne Grange is located right beside the M20 near Maidstone. That said, you wouldn’t know it’s there – it covers around 270 acres and is very tree-based. The trees (and fresh air etc) were meant to be good for the patients. 1200 patients.
It opened in 1936, was used for sixty years, and finally closed in 1996. There is a private school on the site which is still in use. The colony was built in the grounds of a huge manor house which still remains. The manor house also has an impressive clock tower.
A lot of the buildings are very well boarded up, but we managed to look in a few.
Hall
First stop was the main hall. This was used to entertain the patients (discos, etc) and also for religious worship as there is no chapel on site.
Inside is a fantastic little buggy, some junk, and a projection booth..
Boiler Room / Engineering
From the outside…
.. and inside is an impressive selection of boilers. There are eight huge ones, and you can climb on top of some of them.
There’s also loads of little rooms with various tools and things. There is also an office.
Kitchen / Laundry
Considering the hospital closed 10 years ago, I can’t beleive how many machines are left in the kitchen and laundry areas…
Nurses Home
This is a behemoth of a building. It’s four storeys high and it housed a million nurses (to confirm?). Every single window is smashed. Apart from the ground floor ones which were all boarded up.
Manor House
The manor house was used as an admin block. It is very secure with alarms and boarding. The clock tower is quite fancy too.
And that’s it. I missed the mortuary. I seem to always miss the mortuary at hospitals (not due to spookiness factor)…
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good pictures, i like that old till. nice lighting
The architect – around 1850 – of the manor house, was Samuel Whitfield Daukes (1811-1888). He also designed Colney Hatch Asylum (now rather grand flats in Friern Barnet), Witley Court, Warwickshire, now in the care of English Heritage, and a number of fine buildings in Cheltenham, including the Railway Station and St Peter’s Church. His most beautiful buildings are St Saviour’s, Tetbury, and the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester.
I was a police cadet in 1975-76 and spent a month at Leybourne Grange helping care for the residents many of whom were institutionalised, but otherwise no more mentally ill than their carers. Some of the women had merely had illigitimate children!I remember it being hard work, one of my favorite attachments, the staff were great fun, residents well cared for and we had lots of disco’s for residents in the room you showed. I went up to the site yesterday, as I have just moved nearby and it brought back lots of memories. I would love to go into the nursing home, it had lovely big rooms with wooden floors, and if my memory serves me right a fabulous stairway. I have a couple of photo’s somewhere, if anyone wishes to see them. My claim to fame is spending my 18th birthday in a mental hospital!!!!and was pushed in a wheel chair into the pond (which I sadly couldn’t locate yesterday) Happy days…..
I was also a Police Cadet there. Great place, great fun. What happened to all the patients??????
I worked & trained at Leybourne Grange Hospital between June 1973 and June 1979. I made some good friends there and it remains one of the most enjoyable parts of my nursing career.
Previous to working at Leybourne I had worked in an iron foundry, when I went to Leybourne it was a revelation set in the countryside near West Malling with it’s welcoming pubs, greenfields, trees & hayfever but nontheless it was a good time and I still remember fondly the hours spent with the good friends in the very social club.
Takes me back to my 10 yrs of working at Leybourne… never forget my first day…. exactly how you imagined a mental institute…. Was there when Leybourne closed… very very sad…. A truely amazing place for the mentally ill, Also a very sad place. A terrific website – a place that should be remembered. Thank you for taking me back to a very memorable time in my life.
is this place haunted??????
yes because ghosts ACTUALLY EXIST. ffs.
a lot of the patients where sent into the world without really know how to live on there own and most ended up homlesss i would to to go and see this place but dose any one know how to get into it now it is beening patroled
i would like to see old picture of leybourne grange to see what it use 2 be like and what it looks like now
Its now going to be built on by Taylor/wimpey. They are going to claim land from Leybourne Grange Riding Centre for disabled. To grow bio crops to heat the houses. So they are selling themselves as environmently friendly, yet causing a facility for the severly disabled to close because they are taking their fields away.
Why was this place abandoned in the first place?
Hi All, I worked in the admin section in the Mansion House in the 60′s to 70′s. Sad to see it in disrepair.David
Me again with correct e-mail address this time, anyone else work at LGH?
I worked there as a volunteer, NA, student nurse and staff nurse and lived in the nurses home. It used to have many more people living there than 1,200! It wasn’t a ‘mental’ hospital, it was for people with learning impairments. Most of the ex residents did NOT become homeless, most moved to community houses/homes.
Plenty of abuse and disrespect went on but also some good stuff too.
I am interested to have anyone who lived or worked there contact me, as I am researching the history of the people and place, the story needs to be told good and bad
email mikbridgeproject@yahoo.co.uk