Royal Earlswood Park
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Royal Earlswood Park by Ian Capper as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Royal Earlswood Park
Image: © Ian Capper Taken: 15 Mar 2009
Originally opened in 1855, and receiving a royal charter from Queen Victoria in 1862, the Royal Earlswood Hospital was an asylum for people with learning difficulties. The first medical superintendent was John Langdon-Down after whom Down's Syndrome was named. It gained notoriety for housing two of the Queen Mother's nieces, Katherine and Nerissa Bowes-Lyon, for almost 50 years, from 1941 to 1986, a fact that was kept quiet, and even denied, by Buckingham Palace, who claimed that they had died. For full history see http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1291479&blobtype=pdf. The hospital closed in 1997, and has now been redeveloped for housing, as Royal Earlswood Park. This is the original main building, now named Victoria Court. It is grade II listed - for listing particulars see www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1241446.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
51.22275
Longitude
-0.166823