One form of work or another

Image: © Neil Owen Taken: 24 Mar 2014

This is Farleigh Court, now a commercial estate with a number of individual companies based here. However, this particular building has a different past: it was built in 1837-8 as Bedminster Union Poor House. After the passing of the Poor Act, the commissioners raised some £6,600 to establish a significant institution to deal with the needy and destitute of south Bristol and other areas. George Gilbert Scott and William Bonython Moffatt were engaged to design the blocks (as they had with other poorhouses) to hold some 300 inmates. In 1899 the governors renamed it as Long Ashton Union and its intake of the poor continued until 1929. It then became Cambridge House, a mental health treatment facility. In 1956 it was renamed Farleigh Hospital, but in 1971 a couple of nurses working there blew the whistle on the scandalous way some vulnerable patients were treated and it was closed. However, in 2005 it was converted into a small industrial and commercial estate, with much of the impressive architecture being retained as a testament to those who had passed its gates. See Image] for more views.

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