I'm planning on doing a Welsh asylum roundabout at some point, but given how huge Whitchurch is, I felt it needed its own report. It's gone quieter in the past few years and it's entering a stage of more heavy decay, which whilst sad to see does make for some great photographs and some excellent paint peel. My overall impression of this place is that it's as close as you'll ever get to the Severalls experience, just more colourful. Every room in this place seems to have its own colour scheme going on, whether from paint or moss, and it makes for an interesting explore. This report covers the asylum across two trips, in Spring and Autumn of 2023. Sure we didn't cover everything, but it's a huge site and we still saw a lot.
Drone shot by @KismetJ
THE HISTORY
The hospital began life as Cardiff City Asylum when it opened in 1908. Like many places without their own asylums, Cardiff had originally been sending its patients to asylums at Glamorgan, Carmarthen and further afield until it could no longer cope. It was designed by architects Oakley and Skinner of Bristol in a stripy fashion of red and yellow bricks with continental classical embellishments. It took up to ten years to build and cost a supposed equivalent of £42 million. It could accommodate 750 patients across ten wards, placing it as a larger hospital in the asylum world. Its initial superintendent was Edwin Goodall was a forward-thinking man who attempted to advance medical practices where possible within the restraints of conventions of the time and the hospital's finances. He changed its name from Cardiff City Asylum to Mental Hospital shortly after opening; a change which would not reach national law until decades later. The hospital became a war hospital in both world wars, treating patients of battle wounds and PTSD. In 1948, the hospital was accommodated into the NHS. Like the rest of the asylums, it declined towards the latter half of the 20th century, with the Care in the Community shift in the 1980s constricting its activities. Despite this, it was a late closure, staying open as an NHS hospital until 2016.
THE EXPLORES
Our first asylum trip to Wales was an attempt to see as many of the five notable hospitals across the country as we could. Whitchurch was placed as our most desirable potential conquest, given its size. However, reports online suggested it would be no mean feat with it having undergone a dry spell for the past while since security tightened and the dog units brought in. A few people have been since this visit giving it a slight resurgence, but earlier this year it was less-widely thought doable. We had no idea how doable it was, but with a building so large there had to be a few weaknesses. After a daytime recce, we decided we would try a possible route and if not, we could ladder into the second floor.
Fast forward 24 hours and we were inside easier than expected in the middle of a sunny afternoon. We couldn't believe our luck and were blown away by how rare an experience it felt to be inside. We didn't want to hang around so got round most of it in around two hours, and snuck around carefully, perhaps overcautiously in areas closer to the secca vans. After heading out, @KismetJ flew his drone over which attracted attention from the guards who began patrolling the perimeter. Thankfully we were outside the fence and the guards were actually very decent. We stopped for a chat about the building's fate through the fence, with them thinking we hadn't been in. 'Imagine being silly enough to fly a drone BEFORE going in' I quipped, they didn't clock. Professional they may have been, but I wouldn't have wanted to get on the wrong side of them or their dog Zeus.
We redid the southern part of our Welsh asylums tour later this year to cover more of what we missed. Given that Whitchurch was so good, we went back for another visit in less good weather. With forward knowledge this time, it was nice and chilled yet we still kept our wits about us. Funnily enough, huge camera towers have been installed around the site now although they seemed to do very little to impair our original route of entry. We covered a similar amount of the hospital but took a few different shots including some closeups with my prime lens. Even in a few months the hospital has suffered more as water and damp seems to be laying the building to wrack and ruin.
The potential pitfalls of the novice explorer. A very polite yet burly man with dog, and one of several all-seeing guntowers.
So there's so many sections to the hospital I have no idea how I'll condense my 150 final edited shots into this post. I'm going to go through the site area by area. As said, this isn't comprehensive, just an attempt to break things down into a digestible format. Let's start with the iconic asylum corridors which are said to span around two miles.
The same corridor only a few months apart.
Next we come to the actual wards. These may have been my favourite bit - the bay windows, the lights, all textbook asylum stuff, complete with siderooms and signs of former padded cells. First up is the stairs connecting the wards to the corridor network. This place is so big I've just had to choose from about 10 favourite photos of stairs - this only wins because it contains a stairlift.
The onto the dayrooms - essentially the communal sitting rooms of the wards. Probably my favourite part of an asylum to photograph. As designed, they certainly let a lot of light inside.
Might be something different but it has a bay window and shit tons of moss.
Then we have the communal bedrooms of the wards - the dormitories. These also had a lot of windows like the dayrooms but in a linear fashion.
Next we move onto the corridors which lead from the communal ward areas to siderooms. These rows of doors are pretty iconic when it comes to asylums and often conjure images of padded cells, which although were certainly used, only some of them were padded. Many of them were simply private isolated patient rooms, as well as offices.
Now for what seems like it could have been a padded cell.
TBC...
Drone shot by @KismetJ
THE HISTORY
The hospital began life as Cardiff City Asylum when it opened in 1908. Like many places without their own asylums, Cardiff had originally been sending its patients to asylums at Glamorgan, Carmarthen and further afield until it could no longer cope. It was designed by architects Oakley and Skinner of Bristol in a stripy fashion of red and yellow bricks with continental classical embellishments. It took up to ten years to build and cost a supposed equivalent of £42 million. It could accommodate 750 patients across ten wards, placing it as a larger hospital in the asylum world. Its initial superintendent was Edwin Goodall was a forward-thinking man who attempted to advance medical practices where possible within the restraints of conventions of the time and the hospital's finances. He changed its name from Cardiff City Asylum to Mental Hospital shortly after opening; a change which would not reach national law until decades later. The hospital became a war hospital in both world wars, treating patients of battle wounds and PTSD. In 1948, the hospital was accommodated into the NHS. Like the rest of the asylums, it declined towards the latter half of the 20th century, with the Care in the Community shift in the 1980s constricting its activities. Despite this, it was a late closure, staying open as an NHS hospital until 2016.
THE EXPLORES
Our first asylum trip to Wales was an attempt to see as many of the five notable hospitals across the country as we could. Whitchurch was placed as our most desirable potential conquest, given its size. However, reports online suggested it would be no mean feat with it having undergone a dry spell for the past while since security tightened and the dog units brought in. A few people have been since this visit giving it a slight resurgence, but earlier this year it was less-widely thought doable. We had no idea how doable it was, but with a building so large there had to be a few weaknesses. After a daytime recce, we decided we would try a possible route and if not, we could ladder into the second floor.
Fast forward 24 hours and we were inside easier than expected in the middle of a sunny afternoon. We couldn't believe our luck and were blown away by how rare an experience it felt to be inside. We didn't want to hang around so got round most of it in around two hours, and snuck around carefully, perhaps overcautiously in areas closer to the secca vans. After heading out, @KismetJ flew his drone over which attracted attention from the guards who began patrolling the perimeter. Thankfully we were outside the fence and the guards were actually very decent. We stopped for a chat about the building's fate through the fence, with them thinking we hadn't been in. 'Imagine being silly enough to fly a drone BEFORE going in' I quipped, they didn't clock. Professional they may have been, but I wouldn't have wanted to get on the wrong side of them or their dog Zeus.
We redid the southern part of our Welsh asylums tour later this year to cover more of what we missed. Given that Whitchurch was so good, we went back for another visit in less good weather. With forward knowledge this time, it was nice and chilled yet we still kept our wits about us. Funnily enough, huge camera towers have been installed around the site now although they seemed to do very little to impair our original route of entry. We covered a similar amount of the hospital but took a few different shots including some closeups with my prime lens. Even in a few months the hospital has suffered more as water and damp seems to be laying the building to wrack and ruin.
The potential pitfalls of the novice explorer. A very polite yet burly man with dog, and one of several all-seeing guntowers.
So there's so many sections to the hospital I have no idea how I'll condense my 150 final edited shots into this post. I'm going to go through the site area by area. As said, this isn't comprehensive, just an attempt to break things down into a digestible format. Let's start with the iconic asylum corridors which are said to span around two miles.
The same corridor only a few months apart.
Next we come to the actual wards. These may have been my favourite bit - the bay windows, the lights, all textbook asylum stuff, complete with siderooms and signs of former padded cells. First up is the stairs connecting the wards to the corridor network. This place is so big I've just had to choose from about 10 favourite photos of stairs - this only wins because it contains a stairlift.
The onto the dayrooms - essentially the communal sitting rooms of the wards. Probably my favourite part of an asylum to photograph. As designed, they certainly let a lot of light inside.
Might be something different but it has a bay window and shit tons of moss.
Then we have the communal bedrooms of the wards - the dormitories. These also had a lot of windows like the dayrooms but in a linear fashion.
Next we move onto the corridors which lead from the communal ward areas to siderooms. These rows of doors are pretty iconic when it comes to asylums and often conjure images of padded cells, which although were certainly used, only some of them were padded. Many of them were simply private isolated patient rooms, as well as offices.
Now for what seems like it could have been a padded cell.
TBC...
Last edited:
