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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Jc
Yes the Moore is the boss i think he still has Hippy tendencies Dr Enrique is here still but on a
locum basis ,still acts like Adolf H…. The addictions is over by Block 5 towards the back of the old wildwood .My name is Liam Mccourt I worked on cowcill with people like Gill Chandler ,Gill wells ,Mark melvyn ,Mark Utterly (Muttely) Mark Smith Jez HILL Carl bradley Tom McMurry ,Tom chandler Bernie Holt there are many more I moved over to the Hatherton approx 16 yrs ago What is youre last name .cheers Liam
Hi Fascinating Site and very poignant for any of us that have had members of our family spend time in here. My Grandfather William Bowers spend the majority of his life here 1932 – 1959 when he died in the hospital. As a Christian Brethren he suffered post traumatic stress (not recognised as such then), fighting for the North Staff Regiment in WW1. The social policy of the day was to lock up all these victims of the war but the impact on his family is still felt today. I would love to know more about the life within the hospital during this period and of course anyone who remembered him as he made an excellent recovery but was never released.
I have reason to believe my great grandmother Rose Barton spent a period of time at the hospital after the unexpected death of her baby.Im really not sure how to find out for certain can anyone point me in the right direction please.
I trained and worked at St Georges for many years. Always look back with fond memories of good people and good care. It’s a shame that these old instituitions are automatically associated with negative images and practices. There were excellent nurses and practices at St Georges Hospital when it was still housed in the old biulding. The social “crack” was good as well, “Bring back the Hunt Nights”
WEAS
You know about the hunt nights ………..reveal ya self man
I believe my great grandfather was in St Georges. Unfortunately I don’t have a name as my grandfather was registered in his Mothers maiden name (I think). I know I am clutching at straws but can anyone tell me where records may be kept, ie next of kin .
We worked at st Georges from 1960 trained their by a wonderful man [mr Anthony] he was a brilliant tutor, we had a good school. I remember Larrie Morrissy, Alf moss was chief mail nurse, bill murcott, stan callagan, Dr liegh, dr Wilson, and Don perkins what a character, I worked with him for years, vic sargant, , shelby Carter,Peter Anthony[ junior] and his wife Erica , brian Simms, jack Rudd, and his wife/
As i said in my first post these were the happiest working days of my life We were proud of our hospital, in fact wish we could have a reunion with old collegues, but many are now dead, or, scattered all over the globe We live in Corfu
Kath, and Alf COX
I also worked at St George’s, many moons ago. In fact I shared a flat with Jon C in block 5! Also served my time in the ‘Dogs Home’.
I started my training in July 1979 in set 120 and staffed on Walton, Wildwood, Kingstone and Baswich wards before leaving to do my general at the, also now defunct, SGI.
Out of my varied nursing career SGH still holds some of the best memories of both staff and patients. How sad though to see the state of the main hospital.
Just had a look at the 1911 census and found my grandfather, William Edward Jordan, listed as an asylum attendant and my grandmother Helen Mary Porter (still unmarried) listed as a parlourmaid. I wonder if they got married in the chapel there sometime in 1911/12/13?
Everything changes eh!
Thanks to Chris D who pointed me in the direction of this website not 10 minutes ago …. I am moved and though sad to see what I know to be a place where I learned my trade, which has given me a a really interesting career over the last almost 30 years, to be a very different place now from the one I remember. I can only look at the photographs fondly.
I grew up here!
I was on the first floor of the dogs home and my flat in block six used to over look Jon Cs flat in Block 5
when he shared it with Adrian, who I was pally with and a chap I went out with for several years also had lived in the same flat – blimey talk about blasts from the past. Looking at those photo’s though, remembering the laughs I had, running up to the social club 10 minutes before closing time for a pint of brain damage, I couldn’t help but wonder what the team from Most Haunted might make of a couple of nights in there!
I have a very positive recollection of this place, it was one where I learned to respect people with mental disorders and institutional illnesses and old age and was privileged to care for them and learn from them as I did.
I recognise many of the names mentioned in the comments here and a big HELLO to anyone who remember me and thanks for sending me here Chris – I was happy to look at the photos and then superimpose the images I will always have in my head right over the derelict debris and see once again the vibrant place it used to be and for the skills I learned there
And no I am not hallucinating OK!
I know what went on in the walls of this building throughout history wasn’t what we like to dwell on .. thinga have moved on since the building closed down (but not as much as they should have done) … politics aside …..I have fond memories of St George,s Hospital. My time as a Student Nurse and later qualified nurse. I worked on most of the wards as a student. The outside of the building and the grouns were gorgeous and my lasting image is walking back to the hospital from Stafford town centre when it had been snowing heavily. magical.
does anyone know whais going to happen to it .. i’ve heard so many rumours
martynadams@rocketmail.com
I too want to thank Chris D for telling me about this site.
At first, looking at the pictures, all I could think was how sad it all is that such a vibrant, wonderful ‘community’ end up in such tatters, but reading the many comments makes me realise that Ruth O is right, Everything changes, even us, sadly! But, our memories do stay the same, so it is good to have a site like this for some of those memories to be written down, instead of just lost.
I started working at St Georges in the summer of 1978 on a YTS scheme but started training in group 119 in 1979 and I do remember events happening in the staff restaurant (Jon C) such as sales, Xmas parties, I remember one birthday ‘do’ and some retirement’s as well.
There was also summer fete’s on the front lawns. Bring-n-buy, tombola stalls, fancy dress events anongst some, which Jon C should remember as he nicked the first prize from me one year, purely coz he was in a wheel chair dressed as a baby and I was a baby crawling on all fours and couldn’t get to the prize fast enough! Proving that the hare sometimes does win!!!!!
Like most I served my time in the dog’s homes in room 9 on the ground floor next to Chris D in room 8 and remember some great parties with the likes of Phil Anderson, Karen Pierce, Debbie Worthington, Randy Salmon and so on……
I am sure I remeber Hazel Cooper mentioning Kathy Cox at some time. We used to work together on Palmer and kept in touch after I retired in 1990 till she passed away in 2006. Would I be right Kathy?
Having found this site I look forward to hearing more stories from ‘back then’.
J
Hi there,
Kath cox here , yes we did train and work with Hazel cooper, stan callaghan, still writes to us ,he did,nt tell me Hazel had died, she must only have been in her late 60,s anyone know if Ray Bennett still around
We left Stafford, I becamea sister in nursing home at St Annes for many years , before retiring to corfu
Yo J Watson! Obviously I was not in the in-crowd then, coz the only time I went to the “great hall” was to eat! Or it could be that the functions ceased in 1980. Yeah, I remember getting dressed up as a baby in a pram, to do some project outside Hotchkiss ward for a crazy nurse tutor called, I think, Anna Cavell – she was well weird! I do remember being in an It’s a Knockout team, when I was on my first ward, Giffard, and we did the events on the football field, in front of the hospital. The others in my team were Mick Dooley SEN, Peter Anthony Nursing Officer, and Mike Jennings Nursing Officer. I think Chris Colley and Steve Kimberley from t’club and rugby team were in the winning team. Phil Anderson charged a fire hose with an umbrella, and almost took his eye out, ooer!
So Ruth overlooked my flat, ooer again! I had 2 flats in block 5; firstly flat 5, which was unqualified and we had 4 of us in it, people like Tim Salmon (hi dude!), Adrian Wells, Keith Harland. When I qualified, I went to flat 1, (which had 3 people in it, with a sitting room as well), and shared with people like Chris D, Raz Crowther, and Paul Kingston, for a while.
When we were turfed out of block 5, Raz and I were given a council maisonette in Rising Brook, which I stayed in for a few months, before I went to Rampton.
I’m not sure what this Martin Adams is quite on about, is he referring to pre 1950s psychiatry before antipsychotics were available, the post world war one practice of throwing unmarried mothers into the asylum because they were an embarrassment, or the use of unmodified electroplexy (ECT) in earlier times? I don’t know. But I can say for sure that care standards were pretty high in my time at SGH. Sure, it was rough on psycho geriatric wards (EMI), getting 25 patients up for breakfast with 3 staff, but we managed. Not ideal, but we did ok. Of course EMI has now been taken care of by the island of Mauritius closing, and all their residents coming over here training as RMNs and opening nursing homes….or is that a Mauritius rumour? Long stay, well that’s another story, I am told that Staffs had to build a unit st the DGH for the long stay patients that social services could not care for – no surprise there folks. That leaves acute admission and special units, which are quite unique in Stafford, as they are practically based exactly where they used to be all those years ago!
I trained in Group 122, commencing April 14th 1980. I retired early from the NHS in Feb 2005, for reasons of integrity. Thank Goodness for Superannuation and Mental Health Officer status. Hello Chris, Hello Ruth, oh and a special hello to Cathy Hopson, nee Simkins.
This is a special note to all the people on here, who are trying desperately to find information out, regarding relatives, who were patients in St. Georges in past times. When I worked there, and the hospital was intact, I used to be aware of, and have seen, ancient case notes, which were housed then in a basement under Sandon Villa – the big building behind the present admission wards. Now I have no idea where they might be, indeed, they might still be there. Then, St. Georges was part of Mid Staffs Health District, which in turn, was part of Staffordshire Area Health Authority. Now St. Georges belongs to South Staffs and Shropshire NHS Trust, for some bizarre reason – there is no more Mid Staffs. Anyway, I reckon the way forward for you all, is as follows:- Write to or telephone:-
Neil Carr OBE – Chief Executive
Trust Headquarters
Stafford
01785 221501
internal ext 5501
I’m sure he, or one of his team will be able to sort something out for you all.
Good Luck
Jon C