Cane Hill

Cane Hill

Cane Hill Hospital was a psychiatric hospital in Coulsdon in the London Borough of Croydon. (grid reference TQ291587)

Design and Construction

The main buildings at Cane Hill were designed by Charles Henry Howell, consultant architect to the Commissioners in Lunacy and built on a hill-top site overlooking Coulsdon and Farthing Downs. The hospital opened in two phases, in 1882 and in 1888 as the Third Surrey County Lunatic Asylum.

Operation

The first superintendent, James Moody, was knighted for his psychiatric work and, following his death in 1915, he was succeeded by Dr George Lilly who retired in 1949. In the post-war period, Cane Hill's superintendent for twenty-three years was the eminent psychiatrist Dr Alexander Walk (1901-1982). Walk was renowned for his scholarship and was an authority on the history of British psychiatry. During its lengthy period of operation, many notable patients passed through the doors of Cane Hill - these include Charlie Chaplin's mother, and the brothers of Michael Caine and David Bowie. Bowie's album The Man Who Sold The World featured the administration block of Cane Hill on its sleeve. At its peak, the hospital was capable of housing up to 2,000 patients^{[citation needed]}

Decline

By the late 1980s the number of patients had greatly declined, largely due to the recommendations of the Mental Health Act (1983) with its emphasis on care in the community. Following a gradual winding down of hospital services and operations, the entire hospital with the exception of a small secure unit had closed by late 1991. The secure unit moved into what had been the Coulsdon Cottage Hospital: in 2006 it held 23 patients and was run by the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM). The unit closed in February 2008, with the patients and staff being transferred to the River House, a new Medium Secure Unit at Bethlem Royal Hospital.

Urban Exploration and Afterlife

Because of its immense size and relatively undamaged state, Cane Hill became extremely popular among urban explorers in the 1990s and early 2000s. On his extensive website, Simon Cornwell has described the complex nature of the Cane Hill Cult.

Cornwell's contribution to the post-modern literature of urban exploration has featured Cane Hill as a focal point of personal and psychological recovery. Styling himself as a "guerilla historian", Cornwell has presented his compulsive "invasions" of the asylum in their historical context in an institution of compulsory detention. Cane Hill, for decades a refuge for the abandoned and the dispossessed, is itself now "abandoned" and in his many expeditions to its interior, Cornwell has recorded the experience physically, emotionally and photographically. The work of these urban explorers is akin to that of psychotherapists who explore the psychological structures of emotional trauma and bereavement.^{[citation needed]}

In later years the interior of the buildings deteriorated greatly. Damage and lack of maintenance caused rot and water damage, causing the wooden floors to collapse in many of the out-lying buildings. The water tower of the hosital housed a low-power analogue television repeater belonging to National Grid Wireless. This was powered by a diesel generator, since there was no mains power supplied to the site after the switchgear was destroyed following an arson attack.

In 2006, Hipposcope Films started planning to film a documentary about the history of the asylum. The site's owners, English Partnerships, who purchased the site in April 2007, apparently gave permission for Hipposcope to access Cane Hill. Filming inside the asylum was due to start according to the project's site in late 2007/early 2008 but there had since been no new news updates and the site has now been taken down.

Listing Proposals and Demolition

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s there were many proposals to re-develop the site including plans for a new housing estate, a business or science park, or to convert some of the buildings into a new medium-security psychiatric hospital. However, because the hospital was in the middle of the London green belt, there were lengthy delays and discussions about the exact nature of any re-development plans.

The hospital buildings were not listed. English Heritage first considered the buildings as part of their Thematic Review of Hospital Buildings in the 1990s, but listing was not granted. Croydon's Planning Brief for Cane Hill of March 1998 suggested the retention and re-use of the Administration Block and Chapel but the buildings were not on the local list nor was any part of the site considered a Conservation Area. An attempt to list the buildings again in 2006 failed; it "did have local interest (in particular the Administration Block and the Chapel)" but "better examples of early echelon asylums exist". However this statement remains controversial as, Cane Hill was not, in fact an early echelon plan asylum but rather a unique example of a transitional plan, best described as "Radiating Pavilion".

Demolition of Cane Hill started in March 2008 and was completed by the end of 2010. Only the Chapel, Administration building and Water Tower remained. A few buildings outside of the main fence remained, most notably the cottage hospital/secure unit.

2010 Fire

On the 13th November 2010 a fire took hold in the administration block and went on to destroy all but the front facade of the building. The fire also destroyed the iconic clock tower. At about midnight, firefighters saw the clocktower crash to the ground in the blaze. The fire had been started in the basement of the building, draughting its way up through the ground and first floors before finally destroying the roof. Along with the clock tower, the fire destroyed many of the exterior masonry walls, rendering the building in a state of imminent collapse.

External links

• Photographic tour Photographic tour of the hospital and grounds.
• The Cane Hill Project exploring and documenting Cane Hill
• Cane Hill Demolition A set of photos detailing the demolition of Cane Hill
• [1] Pics from 2005 onwards