| Blackberry Hill Hospital | |
|---|---|
|
Location within Bristol
|
|
| General information | |
| Town or city | Bristol |
| Country | England |
| Coordinates | |
| Construction started | 1779 |
Blackberry Hill Hospital is an NHS mental health facility and redevelopment site in Fishponds, Bristol, presently the home of some facilities of the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership.
Opened as a prison in 1779, many of its buildings and the co-located Glenside campus of the University of the West of England (UWE) are Grade II listed. In 2009, the 21 acres (8.5 ha) site was sold to the UK Government's Homes and Communities Agency, and is proposed to be redeveloped as part of a wider regeneration project.
Contents |
The site first came into use as a prison in 1779, during the American War of Independence. Developed to house Dutch and Spanish prisoners of war, who had been landed at Bristol Docks. Today, the shell of the original prison plus the British Garrison Officers Mess House and the Admiralty Agents House are all still remeining. After George III recognised the 13 United States as free and independent in 1783, the prisoners were sent home.[1]
The site now formally adopted the title Stapleton Prison, but under utilised in civilian use, was again expanded from 1793 after France declared war at the start of the Napoleonic Wars. A third prison building was completed in 1804, used most recently as nurses' accommodation. After the Treaty of Paris of 1814, again the prisoners were sent home.[1]
Used as a naval stores, and then a school for naval boys, after a cholera outbreak in 1834 led to overcrowding of Bristol's first workhouse at St Peter's Hospital, the Bristol Corporation of the Poor rented the old prison.[1]
After purchasing the site in 1837, they began to make alterations, adding to the walls separating the different sections of the site. In 1861, they demolished many of the oldest prison buildings, and built the main structure of the campus, later to become Blackberry Hill Hospital.[1]
At the start of World War I, the site was turned over to become Stapleton Institution for the Maintenance and Workshop Training of Certified Mental Defectives. The facility housed and then trained those assessed as mentally defective in domestic and industrial crafts, so that they could be deployed in the war effort. After the end of hostilities, these housing and post-assessment training activities continued.[1]
Post World War II, the National Health Service Act 1946 turned the informal retention activity into a full mental health facility, under the title Stapleton Hospital. Records show that on take over by the NHS, the facility was caring for 837 patients: 350 under the Lunacy Act; 152 mentally handicapped; 80 social misfits. Even after takeover, the previous regime stayed in place, with patients assessed as capable enough working for their keep in the hospital's kitchens, bakery and for local farms.[1]
However, in 1948 it became Stapleton Hospital for Geriatric Illness and was renamed again in 1956 as Manor Park Hospital. See Psychiatric Bulletin 1987 11: 261-264 <http://pb.rcpsych.org/cgi/reprint/11/8/261.pdf>
Renamed under the NHS reforms of 1956, Manor Park Hospital retained its mental health brief in a non-workhouse specified regime. The 430 bed hospital manned by eight consultantcy teams hence removed much of its workhouse related architecture, reducing ward sizes internally, and replacing farming and work areas with lush green gardens.[1]
From January 1993, the hospital site merged with the adjacent Glenside Hospital, originally built as a lunatic asylum, to become the jointly named Blackberry Hill Hospital. Patients of Glenside were assessed for capability, with many placed within the Care in the Community programme, while the residual were moved in to new buildings constructed on the former Manor Park site for their long term care.[1]
The newly created Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership (AWMHP) created two new secured facilities at Blackberry Hill. The first was a refurbishment of the secure in-patient care facility, while the second in new buildings to the rear of the site provided a medium secure facility, known as Fromeside Hospital.[1]
In 1996, Avon and Gloucestershire College of Health and Bath and Swindon College of Health Studies joined with the University of the West of England to purchase the former Glenside site, and converted it into the UWE Faculty of Health and Social Care.
In 2005, North Bristol NHS Trust transferred their remaining services to Frenchay and Southmead Hospitals. In 2007, they declared the Blackberry Hill site surplus to requirements, while AWMHP moved some of its older people services to Callington Road and Southmead hospitals. After transferring their 10% interest in the site to NBT, AWMHP adult mental health services were moved to the most modern buildings on the site, proposed to remain onsite until at least 2010.[2]
In 2009, the entire residual 21 acres (8.5 ha) Blackberry Hill Hospital site was sold to the UK Government's Homes and Communities Agency, and is proposed to be redeveloped as part of a wider regeneration project. The buildings which are mainly Grade II listed will be converted into a mixed-use development of flats, houses, shops and small business premises.[3]
As of October 2011, the Homes and Communities Agency has launched a tender asking potential developers to come up with a vision for the Blackberry Hill site. Some eight bidders have been short listed and three fnalists will be selected by the end of November. Part of the requirement will be to work with a newly appointed Community Interest Group to shape any future development plans for the site as closely as possible to legal, community and commercial requirements.
|
||||||||||