# Hill End Asylum- Pic Heavy



## charliereynolds (May 19, 2009)

I've known about this place for a while but know no history for myself! Every other time I've been there it's been at night, for cheap kicks. At night, Hill End is a very scary place indeed. OR maybe I'm just yella. It's a satisfyingly large and complex series of buildings, all of which are very interesting indeed. In case anyone's interested, a quick google map search of Hill End, St Albans should do it.






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788, shot with Canon EOS 450D 






By charlie2788 


YEah, there's a lot isnt there... it's a fun place to photograph


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## james.s (May 19, 2009)

That place looks TRASHED! Nice pictures, what is with the glazed wall with certain words on it 

James


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## mr_bones (May 19, 2009)

james.s said:


> what is with the glazed wall with certain words on it
> 
> James



Moist?


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## klempner69 (May 19, 2009)

Great report and shots there Charlie..I removed the dates off your pics as we dont allow the exact dates of visits to be reported.You never know quite who is watching if you know what I mean


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## zimbob (May 19, 2009)

Tis a cracking wall - saw pics of it on another forum very recently, and it didn't have that ignorant sh*t sprayed on it  That's _seriously_ recent I reckon....


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## Anthillmob74 (May 19, 2009)

great pics. 'your mum goes to finland' has made me chuckle lots.


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## Anthillmob74 (May 19, 2009)

that wall, i see the word 'moist' in there. is it something to do with nirvana? they had a song called moist vagina.


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## nutnut (May 19, 2009)

That is well trashed indeed! Shame about the shite graf everywhere, don't mind the odd bit of decent graf here and there.



Anthillmob74 said:


> that wall, i see the word 'moist' in there. is it something to do with nirvana? they had a song called moist vagina.



Mmmm.... a nice moist vagina! I can just remember what one of those is after 10 years of marriage


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## Lightbuoy (May 19, 2009)

Nice one CR -can see why it freaks ya out!

I was sure that I'd heard Hill End had been demo'd and re-developed years ago, so good to see it's still here 

How much of the Main Hospital Buildings are left?


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## charliereynolds (May 20, 2009)

hi guys, wow thanks for all the positive response! yes, the red racist graffiti made sad. but thoughtless fools must exist i suppose. and yeah, the vagina wall, that was quite fascinating. i didnt actually notice the world moist until a friend pointed it out to me! apart from that it was just the word vagina, except for one tile that had the word 'poo' written on it. if it had been in the tate modern rather than a room in what used to be a lunatic asylum...
and in the same room there was a wall which had been covered similarly but with completely random words... very strange indeed. i would have done photos of that too but it had nearly all been rubbed off. 
The last building we went into i'm sure was probably quite a lovely place to live in it's time... shame about the charred beams and holes in the floors. 
to the person who removed the dates: thankyou, I'm sorry, I'm new and, I'll be more careful in future


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## charliereynolds (May 20, 2009)

Lightbuoy said:


> Nice one CR -can see why it freaks ya out!
> 
> I was sure that I'd heard Hill End had been demo'd and re-developed years ago, so good to see it's still here
> 
> How much of the Main Hospital Buildings are left?



Well, IT's all there, well most of it, but a lot of it is boarded up/caved in/has suspicious looking insulation dangling from the gouges in the ceiling. HOWEVER, if you are able to hold your breath/balls tight enough to get going, it's a really fascinating, in fact beautiful, place to explore. during the day it's pleasant! but at night... wow... scary stuff


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## klempner69 (May 20, 2009)

Charlie,no need to apologise..its just that here,we try to keep details to a minimum of things like visit dates,access details and levels of security..it makes it harder for accusers to pin visits/vandalism etc on our forum members.Keep up the good work and look forward to your next report.


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## RichardB (May 20, 2009)

It's nice to see proper graffiti for a change. I can't stand that willy-waving "arty" stuff, buy a bloody easel if you want to be an artist  I'd be tempted to go down there and clean the racist stuff off. I'm all for free speech (it's given this person the right to show the world he's a twat) but don't deface the vagina wall.


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## Pete (May 20, 2009)

charliereynolds said:


> Well, IT's all there, well most of it, but a lot of it is boarded up/caved in/has suspicious looking insulation dangling from the gouges in the ceiling. HOWEVER, if you are able to hold your breath/balls tight enough to get going, it's a really fascinating, in fact beautiful, place to explore. during the day it's pleasant! but at night... wow... scary stuff





Lightbuoy said:


> Nice one CR -can see why it freaks ya out!
> 
> I was sure that I'd heard Hill End had been demo'd and re-developed years ago, so good to see it's still here
> 
> How much of the Main Hospital Buildings are left?



This isn't the asylum itself, it's the asylum farm. The entire asylum block was redeveloped between 1996-98 and only two southernmost ward blocks and the medical officers house in between survive and have been converted to housing. Elsewhere the chapel, some staff cottages and the cemetery still exist but thats about it for the hospital site. 

The hill end farm buildings which charlie has pictured were leased to Oaklands college for building and agricultural training but closed about ten years ago and it stood opposite the main entrance to Cell Barnes hospital which was a mental handicap colony akin to Harperbury but has been demolished. The largest two storey brick block was the old ward block for patients that worked on the farm. It was already badly trashed by the time i went there in sept '04 but loks even worse now.


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## Winchester (May 20, 2009)

I did wonder what part this was, considering I was aware of the demo/conversion.


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## RedDave (May 20, 2009)

It's marked as Home Farm on OS Explorer 182, about 400m south of Hill End Hospital which, if Google aerial photographs are sufficiently up-to-date, has been converted into housing. I was here (Home Farm) a couple of weeks ago, having finally got around to exploring it since I first spotted the place last December. I was disappointed to say the least: every building has been trashed or torched, and there's practically nothing left which indicated its original purpose, so I didn't bother making a report. I was unaware of its connexion to the hospital, or that the hospital was an asylum. The surrounding area seems to have been packed full of asylums: Napsbury, Harperbury, Shenley, Leavesden and Hill End. I suppose that was where London's mentally ill were put.

It's due to be demolished and converted into a Wimpey housing estate, I think. I can't say I'll miss it.


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## charliereynolds (May 20, 2009)

RichardB said:


> It's nice to see proper graffiti for a change. I can't stand that willy-waving "arty" stuff, buy a bloody easel if you want to be an artist  I'd be tempted to go down there and clean the racist stuff off. I'm all for free speech (it's given this person the right to show the world he's a twat) but don't deface the vagina wall.



Hahaha, very good points.

and that's interesting to learn that it's just the farm, i did not know that. i SHOULD have known, what with all the obvious barns and warehouses and even a stable, but i think the room like the vagina wall room and the buildings of what appear to be dormitories led me to assume that it was all one free standing and self sufficient establishment.


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## Winchester (May 20, 2009)

RedDave said:


> It's marked as Home Farm on OS Explorer 182, about 400m south of Hill End Hospital which, if Google aerial photographs are sufficiently up-to-date, has been converted into housing. I was here (Home Farm) a couple of weeks ago, having finally got around to exploring it since I first spotted the place last December. I was disappointed to say the least: every building has been trashed or torched, and there's practically nothing left which indicated its original purpose, so I didn't bother making a report. I was unaware of its connexion to the hospital, or that the hospital was an asylum. The surrounding area seems to have been packed full of asylums: Napsbury, Harperbury, Shenley, Leavesden and Hill End. I suppose that was where London's mentally ill were put.
> 
> It's due to be demolished and converted into a Wimpey housing estate, I think. I can't say I'll miss it.



London was previously split into much smaller administrative areas.

A lot of the asylums in modern day Surrey served London. Cane Hill, Netherne, The Epsom Cluster, Brookwood etc, as well as the Middlesex asylums that you've listed above.

London itself had Stone House, Claybury and Bexley.


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## Winchester (May 28, 2009)

I went down there yesterday, saw the two remaining ward blocks and the superintendants house, which remain. The chapel is now an arts centre, but you can tell it was part of the hopsital - tellingly, there were two entrances at the rear of the chapel, dividiing the sexes.

The farm is in a proper state, the ward block that remains is the most interesting part, but still, it's a dead explore, just rubble and the only paperwork that is in situ is from when the local agricultural college was using the the building. Planning permission has been granted for demolition of the site and a new housing estate to be built.

There is a memorial garden for the patients at Hill End in front of one of the ward blocks, with a board showing information about the hospital, including a few pics. what's left is tastefully done, but they should have kept more of the original hospital buildings in my opinion, made it something more like Napsbury. Sadly the early closures and conversions/demolitions were not in the slightest sympathetic, and that is why we've lost the vast majority of Hill End.

I'll add the pictures when I've taken them off the camera.


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## Matey (Jun 4, 2009)

Done this one today an it really is trashed, wish i'd done it a few year's ago.


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## ImmortalShadow (Jun 5, 2009)

Nice photo's there, scary grafitti! I like the fact the cupboard door with the words 'do not open' was slightly open  I also like the mix of black-and-white and colour photo's.


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## xdxa5onx (Nov 7, 2009)

*gone*

I was there earlier in the year. Got some good shots. 

It was interesting to learn that this was actual hill end farm. I though there might be a link as the main building looked of a similar age to the older buildings still standing on the highfield estate ( the site of hill end mental asylum ). I think this was the accommodation block of home farm when it was used by Oaklands college.

Anyway, The bad news it's all gone. I rode past there today - home farm is nothing but a big pile of rubble now. 

My Explorations


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## Winchester (Nov 8, 2009)

Cheers for the update.

It was a bit fucked, but a good example of some GT Hine architecture.


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## foz101 (Nov 8, 2009)

RichardB said:


> ...but don't deface the vagina wall.



You've got to deface a few vagina walls in life....


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## GE066 (Nov 8, 2009)

Any particular reason for the duplication of shots?? There's a lot of similar photos in there as it is, it'd make more impact if it was less.


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## cagedangel (Nov 9, 2009)

nice pics dude
everyone likes a bit of vagina,mad or not!!:icon_evil


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