Stafford County Asylum opened in 1818 to accomodate 120 patients. Over the years it expanded and housed around 1000 patients. During the 1950s, it was renamed St George’s Hospital. Like so many other asylums, it closed in the mid-1990s. There are plans to convert the Grade II listed buildings into “100 distinctive dwellings”, and work should be starting in 2008.
Living in Stafford a few years ago, I would often get a tantalising glimpse of the asylum from the nearby ring-road. I sometimes wondered what it was like inside. I didn’t do anything about it, indeed almost forgetting about it when I moved away. Five years later I finally got the chance to look around. Stafford Asylum is, by far, one of the most derelict buildings I have visited. Time has not been kind to it, suffering at the hands of both vandals and nature. There are no windows and very few ceilings. Floors are squidgy and rotten, if they are there at all!
Outside
You can’t help but admire this behemoth of a building. At four storeys high and around 300m long, it would’ve made an impressive sight on the Stafford marshes in it’s heyday. Sadly it’s glory now hides behind a huge overgrown mess of trees.
Lower levels
The lower levels of the asylum are relatively interesting. Corridors, some isolation rooms (with the most colourful array of doors I have seen in an asylum), engineering rooms, a delightfully dingey pharmacy, and so on…
Chapels
There is a small double chapel in the asylum, strangely found on the second floor.
Main hall
The main hall is perculiar – it is full of scaffolding. Presumably an attempt to prevent it collapsing after previous arson attacks.
Stairs
The main staircase is rather impressive, a square-spiral affair complete with anti-suicide cages. Someone had tried to throw a door down, with no success.
Upper floors
There are huge holes in the roof, and they are slowly making their way down to ground-level. Needless to say, not much of the upper floors were explored…
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my mother’s uncle died in safford mental hospital
in 1914 at the age of 27, I would like to find out
more, why he was in there.
Also my husbands grandmother was in there from
May1939 to July 1946,her name was Ada Jones,
she came home to live till the 1950′s.
my mother’s uncle was name frederick victor little.
Is there any one who worked at St Georges in the last 20 yrs
This is for RP, who posted on 19 August, and is without doubt a cousin of mine:
I have only today discovered your post. We really must find one another! How may we get in touch?
this place crazy!!!!!
Firstly, hi Aldith! How are you – remember Michael Flanagan Day Hospital in Sandon Villa? I trained as a Registered Mental Nurse at St. Georges from 1980 to 1983. I then worked there until December 1985, and got out, as Thatcher had started to wreck the NHS with her 2 “Griffiths Reports”. These reports (a) created trusts, and (b) closed the asylums nationwide. I then left Stafford, and went to work in one of the 3, then Home Office run, Special Hospitals. Your pictures are of part of the main block of the hospital obviously, as the admission wards, sandon villa, weston villa are still intact, as are other related buildings. The main block housed 2 distinct types of patients, alzheimer patients (dementia), and long stay chronic psychosis patients (schizophrenia, manic-depression etc). Your term “isolation rooms” is incorrect. They are/were merely single bedrooms. One main building ward was the exception here – Cowcill Ward, which had seclusion rooms, as it was the refractory ward, i.e. it was used for violent patients, or potentially violent patients, as a mainly short stay environment.
The “main hall” as you put it, was the staff canteen. No events were held there, certainly post late 1970s, as the staff social club was used for that. The chapel in your photos was the old chapel. In the early 1980s, a new chapel was built, between the main building, and the also now derelict St. Chad’s unit of Wildwood Ward, Kingstone Ward, Shallowford Day Hospital, and Baswich Ward.
It would have been interesting to know what wards are on your photos, it is impossible for me to tell! How did you get in to take the photos? Last time I went there (80 miles from where I now live) there were security people on, who didn’t know who to write to for permission.
The “suicide nets” – it wasn’t one patient who jumped, it was 3! At different times. All of whom, were long stay patients, involved with the same woman patient, interestingly……..Yes it was a long way down from Creswell and Gayton Wards to the bottom.
I lived in Block 5 for 3 years, and had many a good party in the nurses home too. These are now offices, they’ve built massive offices on the drive to the staff club too – proof that the NHS has become full of too many chiefs and money men, and not enough Indians (i.e. doctors, nurses, porters etc).
Lovely to see someone else’s photo’s of St George’s!
I explored it not long ago with a friend.
I know you don’t usually find many of places like this, but does anyone have any Pre-dereliction photos of the interior?
it’s one place i’ve been to that i’d love to see in it’s heyday.
Thanks!
Sophie.
Hi Jon C I used to work on cowcill ward I now work in the Forensic side called The Hatherton centre we have 4 units here I C U and assessment and rehab ,i was interested to read about the incidents /suicide nets I used too nurse the lady in question her initials are F W I worked with the late Larry Morrisey on Cressell I also lived in the nursing home or as we called it in them days “The Dogs Home” great days
i worked in the old st george’s building from 1990-93 as a domestic (cleaner) and covered all the wards at weekends and in the evenings…some of the wards were closed then due to relocation into the community…over the years i was there, the rest all closed too….i work in the new part now (like liam) but still walk past the old building regularly…i would love to go in for a last nose about…it was a beautiful building…and not all of the stories were sad..some of those people were placed there wrongly but lived there for many years, it became their home…and i always felt there was a good atmosphere and a buzz about in the corridors…there was sadness, but happiness too!
Yo Liam! I am aware that the Hatherton Centre sprung up out of Milford Ward / The PDU, and voila, a regional secure unit! When I left in Jan 1986, the admission wards were Walton Chebsey, Brocton, Milford. Oh, and Weston Villa Alcohol Unit. Now the wards are, ?old Walton, Brocton has swapped places with Chebsey, and your Hatherton Unit. I went to Rampton Special Hospital to work.
You are correct in the name “FW”, and I also worked with Larry, he was on Cresswell then though; Cowcill had Paul Kingston and Tom Mc Murray, and Dave Constantine swapped with one of them at some point. No doubt I know a few staff on your Hatherton Unit, I believe Gill Chalder (nee Griffith) works there, as does Mark Melvin?
If anyone is interested, this is my momory of the names of the main building wards, which are now derelict. Looking at the front of the hospital, from left to right, you can see a block of wards 3 stories high, then 2 blocks 4 stories high, then a block of 3 again. So from left to right, bottom floor upwards:-
Woolley, Farmer, Seighford.
League of Friends, Moss, Hopton, Cresswell.
Wheaton Aston, Lapley, Haughton, Gayton.
Hotchkiss, Tixall, Cowcill.
Palmer and Giffard wards were single story wards, situated perpendicularly to and behind the main block.
As I wrote before, the St. Chads Unit was connected to the main hospital by a covered walkway, and housed Wildwood, Kingstone on the ground floor, and Shallowford Day Hospital, and Baswich on the first floor.
There were also 2 quirky places for patients who needed little staff input, The Beeches, and The F.I.R.S. That was an acronym, and meant “For Intensive Re Socialisation”!!!
Last but not least, there was a prefabricated ward, called Norbury, situated just off the drive, which goes past the nurses block residences,
Oh, and Kingsmead Hospital (the “H” shape building near the staff club), was nothing to do with psychiatry. It was a general hospital, allied to the SGI (Staffordshire General Infirmary), which was the precursor of Stafford District General Hospital, now known as Stafford General Hospital lolol. I wonder how many internal letters go to the general hospital, when they’re meant for St. Georges (both are “SGH”)?
the old walton is now called stonefield..it is learning disability, there is a picu called norbury which works in conjunction with brocton and chebsey…the hatherton has 4 wards..st chad’s (kingsmead) houses 2 elderly wards..baswich and bromley plus eating disorders..kinver…and mother and bay..brockington…coton house (addictions) is at the far end in one of the old blocks
Jon C Hi
yes iworked with all the people you have mentioned gill is now a Nurse consultant tom has retired now ithink he has gone back to Scotland Dave Constantine has also retired I worked with Dave on the old Walton Ward as Bongus Mentioned it is now Stonefields ,not sure where Paul is these days i think he is in birmingham teaching as for Mark Melvyn he is still here (old Twat ) He was living with me for a couple of years Mark is teaching MAPPA (C&R) Martin Moore is the ward manager on my unit Newport House I C U
Yo Liam!
Monty is your ward manager! I remember him as one of my students, good lad. Is he still a hippy? Ha ha! MAPPA – what? Is that another name for MVA? Management of Violence and Aggression? When I went to Rampton in 1986, we had to do the full prison C&R, including using 2 teams of 3 to ascend stairs with 2 shields at the front (one per team), and 2 massive shields above (to ward off objects hurled down on to you). They don’t do that anymore, just in prisons I guess.
Since I worked there from 1980 to the end of 1985, I might know who you are?
This addictions place, I am mystified by Bongus’ description of where it is, is it the old alcohol unit in Weston Villa? Oh, and is Dr. Enrique Mateu still there?
I have vivid recollections of St. George’ s Hospital as a child.(approx. around 1945-1949) I used to visit my grandfather who lived in the grounds of the hospital, the bungalow, where he lived, is still there to this day. It is located in the grounds, at the junction of Crooked Bridge Rd. and Corporation St. There used to be a road entrance with an avenue of trees leading up to the hospital, the building of a brick wall now closes this off. His name was Bernard (Bert) Moore, (1890 – 1969) I think he was a nurse / superintendent. Many years later I met a nurse who had worked at the hospital, upon mentioning my grandfather to him, he said, a room in the hospital was named after him. Opposite the bungalow he had a large walled garden, long gone, and regularly had help from a few of the patients, one being totally deaf, who as far as I could tell, as a child, was perfectly normal.
One of the great thrills when visiting him was that I used to enter the hospital, on my bike, using the Goal Square entrance, this meant I rode in front of the main building then around the pig farm. As a child I used to spend many hours watching the pigs. Then came the tricky bit, there used to be a women’s ward which had a large grass area in front of it, just past this there were a couple of open barred windows, and soon as the women saw me they would all shout and scream at me, It amazing how fast you can peddle. Many other recollections such as sports day, receiving an Xmas present, built by a patient, of a working model steam engine, nobody had presents like that in those days. Finally grandfather showing me a marvellous pencil picture of Winston Churchill, drawn by a patient, saying something to the effect “ they may have their problems, but many are only one step from being brilliant.”