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Severalls Hospital (also known as the Second Essex County Asylum and Severalls Mental Hospital) was a psychiatric hospital built in 1910 in Colchester. The 300-acre site housed some 2000 patients and was based on the "Echelon plan" - a specific arrangement of wards, offices and services within easy reach of each other by a network of interconnecting corridors. Psychiatrists were free to experiment with new treatments on patients seemingly at will, using practices now considered unsuitable such as electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) and the use of frontal lobotomy.
The hospital closed as a psychiatric hospital in the early 1990s following the closure of other psychiatric institutions.
I don't generally post reports from old trips but nobody has posted a report from here for ages so why not, it's a classic! The first time I went we spent 4 hours inside before being busted by a Gurkha just as we were leaving. He was a smily chap who didn't speak much English, I gave my name as Robert Palmer and sang him a quick rendition of my hit 'Addicted to love' before he let us out and told us to "come back and try again tomorrow" with a cheeky wink. I returned a couple of weeks later and this time we managed 7 hours unseen and saw a fair bit of the site. There isn't much stuff left behind but the long corridors and 20 odd years of natural decay are really photogenic in places. The site is now apparently being prepped for initial demolition, all the trees have gone and there is new security in place so my advice is to get down there soon if you want to see it before it goes. Asylums will soon be a thing of the past....
The hospital closed as a psychiatric hospital in the early 1990s following the closure of other psychiatric institutions.
I don't generally post reports from old trips but nobody has posted a report from here for ages so why not, it's a classic! The first time I went we spent 4 hours inside before being busted by a Gurkha just as we were leaving. He was a smily chap who didn't speak much English, I gave my name as Robert Palmer and sang him a quick rendition of my hit 'Addicted to love' before he let us out and told us to "come back and try again tomorrow" with a cheeky wink. I returned a couple of weeks later and this time we managed 7 hours unseen and saw a fair bit of the site. There isn't much stuff left behind but the long corridors and 20 odd years of natural decay are really photogenic in places. The site is now apparently being prepped for initial demolition, all the trees have gone and there is new security in place so my advice is to get down there soon if you want to see it before it goes. Asylums will soon be a thing of the past....
1. The front of the admin building
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10. Squirrels Boutique was the hospital tuck shop
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25. This was where the main hall existed before it was destroyed in a fire and demolished in 2007
26. More fire damage, the beams on the ceiling stood out in the shape of a crucifix from this angle
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28. Some externals
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Thanks for looking 
