Cane Hill

Cane Hill Hospital was a psychiatric hospital in Coulsdon in the London Borough of Croydon. The site is owned by GLA Land and Property.

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.

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.

The hospital took in a large number of discharged mentally ill servicemen during World War I, the earliest patient recorded being admitted in 1915 but later discharged to another hospital in 1923. Records for nearly 40 such service patients - some of whom died and were interred in the hospital cemetery - have been found.

In the post-World War II 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.

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.

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