Warlingham Park Hospital

The water tower is all that remains

Warlingham Park Hospital was a psychiatric hospital in Warlingham, Surrey. It was located at grid reference TQ373595 in Chelsham.

It opened on 26 June 1903 as the Croydon Mental Hospital (Croydon Borough Mental Hospital or Croydon County Borough Mental Hospital). This is reputedly the first institution to be called a 'mental hospital' and never appears officially to have been called an asylum.[1] It is recorded as having been a pioneering centre for psychosurgery.

In later years it concentrated on providing psychiatric care rather than being a home for people with mental retardation like the nearby St Lawrence's Hospital, Caterham.

This hospital was the first hospital of its kind in 1954 to offer community psychiatric services to patients.

The hospital closed in February 1999 and the archives were deposited with the Bethlem Royal Hospital which also became the primary provider of mental health care to residents of Croydon. The site has been redeveloped as an up-market housing estate called Greatpark.[2]

The Grade II listed water tower [3] and also the roundabout, formally known as "The Circle" are all that remain of the former hospital.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Index of English and Welsh Lunatic Asylums and Mental Hospitals". Retrieved 3 August 2013.
  2. ↑ "Greatpark Warlingham Website". Greatpark Management Committee. Retrieved 3 August 2013.
  3. ↑ "Warlingham Park Hospital Water Tower, Chelsham and Farleigh". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 3 August 2013.

Coordinates: 51°19′05″N 0°01′52″W / 51.31805°N 0.03117°W