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Sherwood Way, EPSOM, KT19 8LQ

Converted psychiatric hospital, these being some of the retained buildings from West Park Hospital.

A retained community mental health service facility on the former extensive psychiatric hospital site.

Previously part of West Park Hospital.

Converted psychiatric hospital, these being some of the retained buildings from West Park Hospital.

The old mental hospital occupied a substantial acreage, but the majority of the buildings had been demolished by the time this shot was taken. Most were two-storey red-brick structures dating from the 1920's or '30's. entirely institutional in style. The structure seen here is marked on the map as a chimney. To me it looks like the sort of tower which was once characteristic of old-fashioned laundries. The bench in the foreground stands outside the Meadows Day Clinic, which offers monitoring and support for patients with dementia. I remember sitting here one summer's day a few years ago with my late step-father, then in his nineties. The hospital site is currently being redeveloped for housing. Some of the old red-brick ward buildings will be retained and converted, but much of the area will be covered by 'new-build'.

Landmark tower, possibly an old laundry block, at the former mental hospital south of Chessington.

West Park Hospital began life as a large psychiatric institution opened in 1924 to house London's insane. Although the buildings and grounds take up most of the central area of this grid square, only a handful are now in use, the rest having closed in the 1990s-2000s. Most of the wards are now standing derelict.

Redevelopment of West Park psychiatric hospital.