Tone Vale Hospital

Tone Vale Hospital
The main hospital building
Shown in Somerset
Geography
Location Cotford St Luke, Somerset, England, United Kingdom
Coordinates ST167273
Organisation
Care system Public NHS
Hospital type Psychiatric
Services
History
Founded 1892
Closed 1995
Links
Website None
Lists Hospitals in the United Kingdom

Tone Vale Hospital was a psychiatric hospital located approximately 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) to the north west of Norton Fitzwarren, near Taunton, Somerset, England, in what is now the village of Cotford St Luke. It covered a large catchment area, with patients originating from places as far apart as Porlock (on the north western edge of Somerset) and Yeovil (on the south eastern edge).[1]

Contents

History

The hospital was founded in 1892 and built in 1897,[2] and was originally known as the Somerset and Bath Asylum, Cotford.[3] In 1986, under Margaret Thatcher's government, the Audit Commission published a report Making a Reality of Community Care,[4] which proposed the policy that became Care in the Community and led to a number of mental hospitals being closed in the United Kingdom. In 1987, Tone Vale had 504 inpatients.[5] In 1992, the number had reduced to 350,[6] and in March 1994, a year prior to its closure,[7] the hospital had 117 inpatients.[8]

Notable people associated with Tone Vale

The hospital's first Medical Administrator was Dr Henry Aveline.[9]

James Stutt, an electrical engineer, worked at Tone Vale from 1931 to 1977, and devised an electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) machine which enabled electroshocks to be administered in controlled doses.[10]

In the 1940s, Dr John Walsh was one of the few psychiatrists in the UK to experiment with transorbital lobotomy.[11] In 1949 he operated on eight women at Tone Vale using electroconvulsive shock as anaesthetic.[12]

Somerset and England cricketer Harold Gimblett was admitted to Tone Vale with depression in 1953; he was treated with ECT.[13]

Associated institution

Following the arrival of psychiatrist Dr M F Bethel in the 1950s, child and adolescent psychiatric patients were treated at Tone Vale’s associated institution, Merrifield Children's Unit, rather than on a ward in the main hospital.[14]

In literature

Tone Vale Hospital is celebrated in the book The Tone Vale Story: A Century of Care,[15] edited by David Hinton and Fred Clarke. A less favourable view of the institution is given by Joyce Passmore in her memoir The Light in My Mind.[16] Margaret Sparshott's poem 'Tone Vale Hospital' is included in her published anthology A Matter of Identity.[17]

Current status

Many of the Tone Vale Hospital buildings have been demolished, but those with Grade II Listed status, including the Church of St Luke (the hospital chapel),[18] have been preserved and incorporated into the new village of Cotford St Luke.[19]

Notes

  1. ^ Victorian asylums left the mentally ill isolated
  2. ^ Tone Vale Hospital, Taunton | Whatevers Left
  3. ^ The National Archives | Access to Archives
  4. ^ Audit Commission for Local Authorities in England and Wales (1986). Making a Reality of Community Care. HMSO. ISBN 978-0117013230. 
  5. ^ Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, 17 October 1989, column 83.
  6. ^ Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, 16 July 1992, column 904W.
  7. ^ Tone Vale Hospital - Somerset | derelicte - urban exploration
  8. ^ Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords, 26 October 1995, column 128WA.
  9. ^ Cotford St Luke Forum - Cotford History
  10. ^ Cotford St Luke Forum - Cotford History
  11. ^ Psychosurgery.org | Remembering the Tragedy of Lobotomy - Part 2
  12. ^ Walsh, John. (1949, September 10). Transorbital leucotomy: some results and observations. The Lancet: 465-6.
  13. ^ Foot, David. (1986). Sunshine, sixes and cider: a history of Somerset cricket. Newton Abbot, UK: David and Charles. p. 168. ISBN 978-0-715388-90-7
  14. ^ Obituary: M F Bethel. (1982, May 8). British Medical Journal, 284, 1417.
  15. ^ Hinton, David, & Clarke, Fred. (Eds.) (1997). The Tone Vale story: a century of care. Bishop’s Lydeard, UK: Rocket Publishing. ISBN 978-1-899995-05-9
  16. ^ Passmore, Joyce. (2010). The Light in My Mind. Yeovil, UK: Speak Up Somerset. ISBN 978-0-954977-25-2
  17. ^ Sparshott, Margaret. (2008). A matter of identity: a life recalled in poetry. Peterborough, UK: Stamford House Publishing. p. 121. ISBN 978-1-904985-61-7
  18. ^ Listed Buildings in Bishops Lydeard, Somerset, England | British Listed Buildings
  19. ^ Cotford St Luke

External links