Hortham, was the first institution to be functionally designed and built as a complete Colony, and designed to care for just over 600 patients.
Under the Mental Health Act 1913 Section 38, Bristol City Council decided to acquire land and build an institution for the care of the mentally handicapped which was to become Hortham Idiot Colony
The search for a suitable site took a while, because of WW1 going on.
In 1924, after a long review of various land plots, a 126 acre site was choosen. It was purchased for the some of £4,788 and was essentially agricultural land.
During construction, various roman artifacts were found, some of which are displayed in Bristol City Museum
The architects were W.S Skinner and sons, and the main contractor H.Bell and sons. Work started on 14th May 1929 to the total cost of £215,000. The contracter completed the work by May 1931, and the Colony was handed over to the Bristol Corporation, where the furnishing and equipping of the buildings then followed. Six months later, the first patients were admited.
April 29th 1933, Hortham officially opened its doors.
Hortham has been commonly misconcepted as a "Mental Institute for Children", it had patients off all ages, included the famous MurdererJohn Straffen (Britains longest serving prisoner).
Hortham finally scaled down its work in 1988 and finally closed its doors in late 1991. Since then was left derelict, during the 90's it was the playground of Travellers for a few years, till they had stolen everything of any value there, cut bake and left. And from then on fell pray to vandals and arsonists. Since 1998 various planning applications were submitted but all were denied, for what reason is unknown. But in 2005 one from Barret / Taylor Woodrow was submitted after all they did own the land. They won, which suprised everyone as nearly all of the local residents to Hortham Hospital objected. And in 2006, demolition work started courtesy of Bath Demolition, during which, they "accidentally" cut down various trees with Tree Preservation orders on. But work was slowed down because they discovered Slow Worms and Bats nesting. They also discovered Asbestos which heeded there attemps abit. By the end of 2006, all buildings were reportedly gone. Crappy over priced houses have since been built on the "foundations" of the former hospital.
Anyway, heres the pictures.
Then & Now
Aerial view from the late 30's.
A fairly recent "birds eye view" from maps.live.com
A picture of Admin taking around 1931 after work completed.
Admin 2006 Picture is Funkymonkeys, hope you dont mind me borrowing it
Some females playing Netball
A near enough shot, you get the idea
Another simalar shot.
(I didnt want to use to many of other peoples pictures, plus, I lost hundreds of original exploration pictures because of a poor harddrive)
A wards day room
Not quite the same, but you get the idea.
Front gates, during its opening.
A shot from the right of the gates, 2006. (Please excuse the gray bit at the bottom, thats what damage the broken harddrive did)
Main Hall, 1930.
Main Hall, feb 2006.
Thats it really as far as my pictures go, I really dont have many left. Ill put a few more of Hortham in its old days up.
Patients doing Laundry
One of the medical hut things built during WW2
One last of the older shots, this is the Hortham Cricket team outside there cricket hut thing.
Cricket hut more recently.
Well, I've been typing, resizing, searching and moving for the last twos hours for this
Have fun, mcspringzy.
All of the older images were used courtesy of Glenside Museum. The rest are my own unless otherwise stated.
Under the Mental Health Act 1913 Section 38, Bristol City Council decided to acquire land and build an institution for the care of the mentally handicapped which was to become Hortham Idiot Colony
The search for a suitable site took a while, because of WW1 going on.
In 1924, after a long review of various land plots, a 126 acre site was choosen. It was purchased for the some of £4,788 and was essentially agricultural land.
During construction, various roman artifacts were found, some of which are displayed in Bristol City Museum
The architects were W.S Skinner and sons, and the main contractor H.Bell and sons. Work started on 14th May 1929 to the total cost of £215,000. The contracter completed the work by May 1931, and the Colony was handed over to the Bristol Corporation, where the furnishing and equipping of the buildings then followed. Six months later, the first patients were admited.
April 29th 1933, Hortham officially opened its doors.
Hortham has been commonly misconcepted as a "Mental Institute for Children", it had patients off all ages, included the famous MurdererJohn Straffen (Britains longest serving prisoner).
Hortham finally scaled down its work in 1988 and finally closed its doors in late 1991. Since then was left derelict, during the 90's it was the playground of Travellers for a few years, till they had stolen everything of any value there, cut bake and left. And from then on fell pray to vandals and arsonists. Since 1998 various planning applications were submitted but all were denied, for what reason is unknown. But in 2005 one from Barret / Taylor Woodrow was submitted after all they did own the land. They won, which suprised everyone as nearly all of the local residents to Hortham Hospital objected. And in 2006, demolition work started courtesy of Bath Demolition, during which, they "accidentally" cut down various trees with Tree Preservation orders on. But work was slowed down because they discovered Slow Worms and Bats nesting. They also discovered Asbestos which heeded there attemps abit. By the end of 2006, all buildings were reportedly gone. Crappy over priced houses have since been built on the "foundations" of the former hospital.
Anyway, heres the pictures.
Then & Now
Aerial view from the late 30's.
A fairly recent "birds eye view" from maps.live.com
A picture of Admin taking around 1931 after work completed.
Admin 2006 Picture is Funkymonkeys, hope you dont mind me borrowing it
Some females playing Netball
A near enough shot, you get the idea
Another simalar shot.
(I didnt want to use to many of other peoples pictures, plus, I lost hundreds of original exploration pictures because of a poor harddrive)
A wards day room
Not quite the same, but you get the idea.
Front gates, during its opening.
A shot from the right of the gates, 2006. (Please excuse the gray bit at the bottom, thats what damage the broken harddrive did)
Main Hall, 1930.
Main Hall, feb 2006.
Thats it really as far as my pictures go, I really dont have many left. Ill put a few more of Hortham in its old days up.
Patients doing Laundry
One of the medical hut things built during WW2
Cricket hut more recently.
Well, I've been typing, resizing, searching and moving for the last twos hours for this
Have fun, mcspringzy.All of the older images were used courtesy of Glenside Museum. The rest are my own unless otherwise stated.
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