TopAbandonedPlaces | URBEX's video: THE REMAINS OF DERELICT BARROW GURNEY MENTAL HOSPITAL - URBEX

ℍ𝕀𝕊𝕋𝕆ℝ𝕐 Barrow Hospital (sometimes referred to as Barrow Gurney Hospital) was a psychiatric hospital in Barrow Gurney, Somerset, United Kingdom. By the mid-1920s, the existing City of Bristol Mental Hospital at Stapleton was suffering from serious overcrowding. In addition, the Victorian hospital buildings were now considered too old-fashioned, having been built 'like large barracks' connected by corridors which allowed easy access for staff but provided 'little relief to those [patients] sensitive to their environment'. Extensions to the buildings helped to alleviate the problem to some extent, but it was still abundantly clear that a second hospital would soon be needed. The Bristol Corporation's preferred site was on the nearby Oldbury Court Estate, but when sale negotiations broke down in 1928 the Corporation was forced to look elsewhere and instead purchased 260 acres of woodland called The Wild Country near Barrow Gurney for £20,000. The new hospital was designed by Sir George Oatley of Bristol to the then-innovative colony plan based on detached 'villas' centred on a central cluster of service buildings. The plan called for 25 villas to house 1,200 patients, treatment centres for local authority and private patients, a chapel, recreation hall, laundry and central kitchens. The buildings were austerely constructed of red brick with pantiled mansard roofs and were situated so as to give a sense of community and privacy as well as to take advantage of the wooded surroundings which were retained and enhanced by tree-thinning and landscaping. Construction began in 1934 and although the hospital was not officially opened until 3 May 1939, Barrow Hospital received its first patients in May 1938 with the complex still only half-built. It was intended that the rest of the planned buildings should be gradually added over the following years as funds allowed, but the outbreak of war in September 1939 halted all work on site and the architect's full vision was never realised. In 2003 the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust announced its intention to close Barrow Hospital by 2008. By 2004 only three residential wards remained open. A report published by Mind in 2003 found that on the issue of the hospital's closure, opinion among patients was divided with groups of patients having strong feelings both for and against. In 2005 a national survey of hospital cleanliness named Barrow as the dirtiest in Britain after inspectors found cigarette burns on floors, graffiti on walls, urine stains around a toilet and stains from bodily fluids on the bottom of a hoist chair. The report, combined with the collapse of part of the ceiling onto the head of a patient the same year saw the closure plan brought forward and the last ward closed the following year. ✌✌✌Filmed by Sam .W✌✌✌ ✌Joined by: N/A ✌ Twitter: @TopAbandonedUK ✌ Facebook: @TopAbandonedPlaces ✌ Instagram: @topabandonedplaces