IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Beningfield Drive, ST. ALBANS, AL2 1GN

These are the old blocks from the mental hospital which was converted some years ago.

This is now a housing development called the Arboretum Expensive prices.

The building at the end of the path with its clock tower was the Main Ward of the former Napsbury Hospital. The hospital was built, in its country house and grounds style setting, between 1898 and 1905 to the design of Rowland Plumbe. It was designed to accommodate some 1,200 long stay patients who through illness were unable to make a full contribution to society. The hospital closed in 1998 and the site and buildings have since been refurbished to create The Arboretum estate. A look at the Google satellite imagery, which currently shows the state of the hospital before the changes were made, reveals how many buildings were demolished to open up this vista. The houses on either side of the square are new.

Napsbury Park was the site of the former Napsbury Hospital, formerly called the Middlesex County Mental Hospital, which was built in 1905. Most of these large institutional hospitals had isolation hospital annexes and a railway connection for the transfer of patients and for bringing supplies in. Napsbury was no exception and a siding left the site of the former Napsbury station on the Midland Railway's main line coming down this route towards the Hospital. It was known, unsurprisingly, as the Napsbury Siding, hence the name of today's road. When it was dismantled I do not know but Napsbury station is shown in use, and the siding existing, on the 1940s Ordnance Survey Popular Map.

This is the former main hall and dining room of Napsbury Hospital, formerly the Middlesex County Mental Hospital. As such it was the focal point of the hospital and while the rest of the site had been sympathetically redeveloped for housing by the time this photograph was taken in 2007 this building appeared to be a neglected eyesore. However nearly two years later and this building too has been restored. See Image

This is the former main hall and dining room of the former Napsbury Hospital, once the Middlesex County Mental Hospital. Now tastefuilly converted into residential accommodation, see Image for the building in its unrestored state in 2007.

This is the water tower and chimney of the former Napsbury Hospital, now one of the prominent features of The Arboretum residential development in Napsbury Park. The road is Beningfield Drive.

In the distance on the left is one of the wards of the former Napsbury Hospital which was called the Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum when it was first built. It has been converted into residences by Crest Nicholson. I think that, looking at the Google Earth images of the site which currently show it before its conversion, the block on the right is new, but built in the style of the existing buildings.

Former Napsbury Hospital, London Colney.