Netherne Hospital

Netherne Hospital, formerly The Surrey County Asylum at Netherne or Netherne Asylum was a psychiatric hospital in Hooley, Surrey in the United Kingdom.

Netherne Asylum was founded on 18 October 1905 to alleviate overcrowding at the existing Brookwood Asylum near Woking. The hospital was designed by George Thomas Hine, Consultant Architect to the Commissioners in Lunacy to hold 960 patients. The buildings followed the popular compact arrow design, with stepped ward blocks on the outside of a broad semi-circle containing the central services such as the administrative offices, laundry, workshops, water tower, boilers and recreation hall. A freestanding chapel was located to the front of the hospital buildings, while an isolation hospital and patients' cemetery were located some distance to the north of the main buildings.

Even in its early days, Netherne gained a reputation as a pioneering force in the treatment of mental illness and for setting standards for patient care. Inmates worked on the hospital's extensive estate, in the hospital workshops, in the laundry or were employed in various handicrafts. In their leisure time they could enjoy reading books and newspapers, attend monthly dances and fancy dress parties and a Christmas pantomime in addition to playing indoor and outdoor sports.

During the First World War, Netherne took on significant numbers of patients from neighbouring institutions which had been commandeered as War Hospitals. In the 1920s, the hospital was renamed Netherne Mental Hospital, the term 'Asylum' having fallen out of favour. In 1933, Fairdene, a voluntary admissions hospital was opened to the south of the site together with seven new convalescent villas and two female wards.

Despite recent expansion, the Second World War stretched the hospital's resources with 6 wards and 2 villas being requisitioned for the treatment of air raid casualties. Patients who were able helped to assemble electrical components for a nearby munitions factory and by the end of the war most patients were employed in sustaining the war effort. Over the course of the war, several bombs fell in the grounds and another landed on the nurse's home but failed to explode.

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