Rainhill Hospital
| Rainhill Hospital | |
|---|---|
| Geography | |
| Location | Rainhill, Merseyside, England |
| Organisation | |
| Care system | NHS |
| Hospital type | Psychiatric |
| Services | |
| Emergency department | No |
| History | |
| Founded | 1851 |
| Closed | 1991 |
| Links | |
| Lists | Hospitals in England |
Rainhill Hospital was a very large psychiatric hospital complex that was located in Rainhill, formerly Lancashire but now Merseyside, England.
Rainhill Hospital was opened on the 1st January 1851, as the third County Lunatic Asylum in Lancashire.
The hospital was known by a variety of names throughout its existence, initially as the Lancashire County Lunatic Asylum from 1851 to 1861, the County Lunatic Asylum, Rainhill from 1861 to 1923, the County Mental Hospital, Rainhill from 1923 to 1948, and later Rainhill Mental Hospital and finally Rainhill Hospital until its closure in 1991.
Rainhill Hospital was once the largest and busiest psychiatric hospital not only in the county of Lancashire, but the whole of the United Kingdom and Europe itself when in 1936 at the peak of its activity there was approximately 3,000 inpatients resident at the hospital.
The hospital complex was divided into two sites by Rainhill Road, a main traffic thoroughfare that still exists to the present day. The divisions were as follows:
The buildings at the Sherdley Division were designed by Harvey Lonsdale Elmes. Initially being the original and only main buildings at Rainhill Hospital, when closures were made to asylums in Liverpool; tremendous pressure was placed on the facilities. Additional wings were added to the Sherdley site with further extensions later constructed on a piecemeal basis. However, it was not until 1877 when plans were put in place by the local superintendent to double the size of the asylum to increase its capacity that a new annexe was constructed to the north-west of Rainhill Road. The annexe would later become known as the Avon Division. The Avon Division was noted for its linear design and long corridor, with some former staff claiming that it was the longest hospital corridor in Europe at the time.
The new annexe at the Avon Division was designed by George Enoch Grayson and Edward Ould, constructed from brown brick with terracotta dressings in the Queen Anne style popular at the time. Two water towers rose above the complex, providing a landmark for the local area for the next hundred years.
Both the Avon and Sherdley Divisions were connected by an underground tunnel, constructed beneath Rainhill Road and accessible only by those who worked at the hospital.
The Avon Division held people mainly from Liverpool and The Sherdley Division took people from St Helens and surrounding areas. Wards on the Sherdley Division were named alphabetically using mainly districts of Merseyside. Allerton, Birkdale, Crosby, Dingle, Eccles, Formby, Garston, Hale, Ince, Jarrow, Kirkby, Lindale, Melling, Newton, Orrel, Penketh, Quendon, Rainford, Speke, Upton and Vetnor.
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Wikipedia