Another one of my random finds and one, if I'm honest, I'm amazed hasn't been covered before.
In 1892 a group of physicians from the National Hospital for the Paralysed and the Epileptic in London was joined by various philanthropists and founded the National Society for the Employment of Epileptics. The first executive committee, including notable specialist physicians of the time John Hughlings Jackson, Sir William Gowers and David Ferrier had an aim of creating an agricultural epileptic colony where patients could live and work. Soon after in 1894, a 370-acre farm property was bought in Chalfont St. Peter, Buckinghamshire and the Chalfont Centre for Epilepsy was founded. Like other epileptic colonies of the time the buildings were separate large villa wards scattered over a sizeable area, with additional buildings being added and improvements made in the facilities to this day. The name was changed in 1907 to the National Society for Epilepsy and has provided residential care, rehabilitation and public education at the Chalfont site ever since, becoming the largest UK epilepsy charity in the process. In 1972 a new NHS facility was set up to provide care for patients with severe and complicated epilepsy, run jointly by the National Hospital and the NSE at Chalfont - this building was the forerunner to the current NHS inpatient and outpatient services at the Chalfont Centre. In 1995 a 1.5 tesla MRI scanner was installed at the centre, the first in the country dedicated to epilepsy research, which was superseded in 2004 by a 3 tesla MRI scanner, putting the NSE at the forefront of medical imaging research into epilepsy.
In 2011 the charity changed it's name to Epilepsy Society.
This building, one of the original late Victorian villa wards known as Debenham House, has been disused for a long time - at least fifteen years, as it's already steel sheeted on the Google streetview imagery from way back in 2008. I believe it was the original location of the NHS facility for severe and complicated cases, as one news article makes mention of it being used by the NHS before it closed, and it would make sense that they moved into a new inpatient and outpatient facility from here. After getting in, I realised that other than some small areas of tagging, it seemed relatively undisturbed and filled with some beautiful natural decay, particularly in the old patient's dining room which also featured a real throwback to exploring the late Victorian-era derelict mental hospitals of old - bouncy spongey rotten wooden floors covered in lino! The other odd thing I noticed is that almost all of the internal doors were missing their glass, it hadn't been broken as there was no glass on the ground, it had all been removed professionally - same with a lot of the external windows too. Getting upstairs past the completely rotten first few steps was fun, and ultimately not worth it, as it was only a small area and there seemed to be a lot more in the way of tagging up there for some reason.
Thanks for looking
In 1892 a group of physicians from the National Hospital for the Paralysed and the Epileptic in London was joined by various philanthropists and founded the National Society for the Employment of Epileptics. The first executive committee, including notable specialist physicians of the time John Hughlings Jackson, Sir William Gowers and David Ferrier had an aim of creating an agricultural epileptic colony where patients could live and work. Soon after in 1894, a 370-acre farm property was bought in Chalfont St. Peter, Buckinghamshire and the Chalfont Centre for Epilepsy was founded. Like other epileptic colonies of the time the buildings were separate large villa wards scattered over a sizeable area, with additional buildings being added and improvements made in the facilities to this day. The name was changed in 1907 to the National Society for Epilepsy and has provided residential care, rehabilitation and public education at the Chalfont site ever since, becoming the largest UK epilepsy charity in the process. In 1972 a new NHS facility was set up to provide care for patients with severe and complicated epilepsy, run jointly by the National Hospital and the NSE at Chalfont - this building was the forerunner to the current NHS inpatient and outpatient services at the Chalfont Centre. In 1995 a 1.5 tesla MRI scanner was installed at the centre, the first in the country dedicated to epilepsy research, which was superseded in 2004 by a 3 tesla MRI scanner, putting the NSE at the forefront of medical imaging research into epilepsy.
In 2011 the charity changed it's name to Epilepsy Society.
This building, one of the original late Victorian villa wards known as Debenham House, has been disused for a long time - at least fifteen years, as it's already steel sheeted on the Google streetview imagery from way back in 2008. I believe it was the original location of the NHS facility for severe and complicated cases, as one news article makes mention of it being used by the NHS before it closed, and it would make sense that they moved into a new inpatient and outpatient facility from here. After getting in, I realised that other than some small areas of tagging, it seemed relatively undisturbed and filled with some beautiful natural decay, particularly in the old patient's dining room which also featured a real throwback to exploring the late Victorian-era derelict mental hospitals of old - bouncy spongey rotten wooden floors covered in lino! The other odd thing I noticed is that almost all of the internal doors were missing their glass, it hadn't been broken as there was no glass on the ground, it had all been removed professionally - same with a lot of the external windows too. Getting upstairs past the completely rotten first few steps was fun, and ultimately not worth it, as it was only a small area and there seemed to be a lot more in the way of tagging up there for some reason.
Thanks for looking
