A good little explore, place was pretty much stripped bare and in the process of being demolished (too many of these old asylums have bitten the dust over the last 5 years). Best find was the morgue, although only small with room for 6 bodies it was still my first and I’m glad to have popped my morgue cherry now if I could just make it to the padded cell at West Park before that’s gone…
Full story and more pics on my blog: http://www.benscamera.com/Home/ so keep an eye out!
The History
Kingsway Hospital Rowditch, Derby, Derbyshire
Derby Borough Asylum
Date founded: 1884 Date opened: 1888
DERBY Borough came late to mental health provision, although a private asylum for paying patients was up-and-running in Green Lane, on the site of the Hippodrome, by 1820.
The county authorities managed to provide a splendid new lunatic asylum (as they were then known) for the rest of Derbyshire, on the western edge of Mickleover, to a design by Derby-born architect Henry Duesbury, in 1849.
What’s left of it is now a housing complex called Duesbury Court.
But the poor unfortunates from the borough, if diagnosed as insane, were sent to existing hospitals at Leicester or Nottingham.
In 1863, the authorities recommended that the borough build an asylum for 200 inmates but it was only in 1871, when Leicester, Mickleover and Burntwood Asylums refused to accept new Derby patients, that something had to be done.
more history in my blog post: http://www.benscamera.com/home/2012/06/15/urbex-kingsway-asylum-hospital-derby-united-kingdom-may-2011/
Sorry if you are not a fan of HDR
