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I visited this place last year when I was trying to see as many asylums as possible before they were knocked down or converted.
I must have got to this one just in time, as last time I visited there were people living in it.
It was nice to see the building being put to good use and the development company did a lovely job of the conversion with minimal demolition.
History:
Stone House Hospital, formerly the City of London Lunatic Asylum, was a hospital and former mental illness treatment facility in Stone, near Dartford, Kent, in the United Kingdom. As of November 2007, the hospital has been closed, and its has been redeveloped into luxury flats.
Stone House was originally constructed between 1862 and 1866 at the behest of the London Commissioners in Lunacy to provide for pauper lunatics from the London area at a cost of £65,000. The buildings were designed in a Tudor Revival architecture style by James Bunstone Bunning, and the facility accommodated 220 patients. The asylum grounds, at first 33 acres (130,000 m2) and later expanded to 140 acres (0.57 km2), included a working farm. Additions to the original buildings were made in 1874, 1878, and 1885, including an expanded female wing and a separate hospital building for patients with infectious diseases.
After 1892, the asylum was able to take "private" patients (patients whose fees were paid by their families, or from pensions). The influx of private patients resulted in a budget surplus, and enabled expansion and improvements of the asylum's facilities. In 1924 the facility was renamed the City of London Mental Hospital, and in 1948 it was taken over by the new National Health Service and became known as Stone House Hospital. A 1998 assessment by Thames Healthcare suggested that the hospital was not suited for modern healthcare; plans for the hospital's closure were initiated in 2003 by West Kent NHS.
I must have got to this one just in time, as last time I visited there were people living in it.
It was nice to see the building being put to good use and the development company did a lovely job of the conversion with minimal demolition.
History:
Stone House Hospital, formerly the City of London Lunatic Asylum, was a hospital and former mental illness treatment facility in Stone, near Dartford, Kent, in the United Kingdom. As of November 2007, the hospital has been closed, and its has been redeveloped into luxury flats.
Stone House was originally constructed between 1862 and 1866 at the behest of the London Commissioners in Lunacy to provide for pauper lunatics from the London area at a cost of £65,000. The buildings were designed in a Tudor Revival architecture style by James Bunstone Bunning, and the facility accommodated 220 patients. The asylum grounds, at first 33 acres (130,000 m2) and later expanded to 140 acres (0.57 km2), included a working farm. Additions to the original buildings were made in 1874, 1878, and 1885, including an expanded female wing and a separate hospital building for patients with infectious diseases.
After 1892, the asylum was able to take "private" patients (patients whose fees were paid by their families, or from pensions). The influx of private patients resulted in a budget surplus, and enabled expansion and improvements of the asylum's facilities. In 1924 the facility was renamed the City of London Mental Hospital, and in 1948 it was taken over by the new National Health Service and became known as Stone House Hospital. A 1998 assessment by Thames Healthcare suggested that the hospital was not suited for modern healthcare; plans for the hospital's closure were initiated in 2003 by West Kent NHS.
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