Barrow Hospital

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.

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