mental hospital

English Hospital For The Criminally Insane Could Become Luxury Hotel

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels, Real Estate Developments

We've seen a few old psychiatric hospitals begin the conversion into luxury real estate but the latest is one of the most infamous hospitals in England. The Broadmoor in Crowthorne Berkshire houses a motley crew of dangerous criminals including the Yorkshire Ripper and the Suffolk Strangler. A plan to turn the stately old building into a luxury hotel or apartments could help finance a new psychiatric hospital. A spokesman for West London Mental Health NHS Trust told The Independent that they are planning to build the new hospital alongside the existing Broadmoor site and that pieces of the current hospital complex no longer needed by the NHS could be sold.

The building opened in 1863 as first building in England built as an asylum for the criminally insane. Patients have included Roderick MacLean, who attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria in 1882 the Moors murderer Ian Brady and Ronnie Kray. Over the last few years the hospital has come under fire for the care of the patients. The hospital's barred windows have been a subject of controversy. Five inmates have hung themselves from the bars in the last decade but the hospital was forbidden from removing the bars because the building is listed as a Grade II structure. Grade II buildings are designed as particularly important buildings of more than special interest. The listing keeps the building safe but I wonder in this case if a renovation into a hotel would lead to a removal of the bars.

Tags: broadmoore, crowthorne berkshire, CrowthorneBerkshire, England World Cup squad, EnglandWorldCupSquad, mental hospital, MentalHospital, psychiatric hospital, PsychiatricHospital

Avalon Bay Asylum Project

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Estates

The site of the Danvers State Hospital for the mentally ill in Massachusetts is being renovated by Avalon Bay Communities, Inc. into a complex of luxury condos. Avalon is planning on putting in 497 units in total. They intend to create a "'campus-like environment' with a swimming pool, WiFi cafe and fitness center. Rents will start around $1,400 for a one-bedroom, and about half-a-million dollars for a condo." The 40 or so buildings on the 75-acre property are being demolished, though the central portion of the original 313,000-square foot Kirkbridge building, pictured, is being preserved as an historical monument.

The hospital was built in the 1870's and has been called one of the "world's scariest buildings." Some people believe that it is even haunted. The architecture is Gothic and the majority of the rooms were built in the style of a dormitory, as the facility was meant to house around 600 patients. During the 1950s, allegations of various shock therapies and lobotomies being used to control the overcrowded facility that held more than 2,000 residents were common and continued until the Hospital was completely closed in 1992. Avalon Bay bought the facility for $18 million.

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Tags: apartments, asylum, building, condos, danvers, danvers state hospital, estate, gothic, haunted, historic, hospital, lunatic, massachusetts, mental hospital, patients, rennovation, world's scariest building