Fairfield Hospital, Bedfordshire
| Fairfield Hospital | |
|---|---|
Fairfield Hospital in 1860
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| Geography | |
| Location | Fairfield Park, United Kingdom |
| Coordinates | 52°00′08″N 0°14′52″W / 52.00219°N 0.2478°WCoordinates: 52°00′08″N 0°14′52″W / 52.00219°N 0.2478°W |
| Organisation | |
| Care system | Public NHS |
| Funding | Public hospital |
| Hospital type | Psychiatric |
| Services | |
| Emergency department | No Accident & Emergency |
| History | |
| Founded | 1860 |
| Closed | 1999 |
| Links | |
| Lists | Hospitals in the United Kingdom |
Fairfield Hospital in Fairfield Park, Bedfordshire, England was a psychiatric hospital from 1860 to 1999.
Originally known as The Stotfold Three Counties Asylum, building of the hospital commenced in 1856 by William Webster on a 253-acre (1.02 km2) site between Letchworth, Arlesey and Stotfold. The official address was Kingsley Ave, Stotfold, Hitchin, Hertfordshire SG5 4, UK in Bedfordshire. The new hospital was to replace the Bedford Lunatic Asylum in Ampthill Road in Bedford, which had been built in 1812. The Fairfield Hospital was designed by architect George Fowler Jones with the longest corridor in Britain, at half a mile long. The clay for its bricks came from the nearby Arlesey Pits. The hospital opened on 8 March 1860 with the transfer of 6 male and 6 female patients from Bedford Lunatic Asylum, and catered for patients from Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Huntingdonshire. The Asylum had its own chapel, farm, laundry, railway station and fire brigade.
By 1861 the number of patients had expanded to 460, with 248 female and 212 male patients. At this time the asylum employed about 256 local people from the surrounding villages, including 66 men in its garden and small farm, where produce for the asylum's kitchen was grown, and 33 women in the laundry and wash house. The Chapel and cemetery were added in 1879, with the East stained-glass window being added in 1920 in memory of the asylum's staff and former inmates who lost their lives in the First World War of 1914-1918. During and after that War the asylum treated male and female patients suffering from shell shock.
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