St Martins Hospital , Canterbury City Mental Hospital
Visited with @Dragon_Urbex
Revisited with @DustySensorPhotography
A few months prior, on a misadventure with the two mentioned above and some others, the idea of paying a visit here was bought up. It went onto the back burner as a visit with other priorities and visits taking the lead but I knew it was one that would be worth a nose.
Fast forward a months or so, a week prior to the visit, Dragon gave me a message hinting at giving this one a whirl. With nothing planned it was agreed.
Aerial image, which I had hoped for, substituted with poor quality phone-camera external due to software issues.
The Hospital
The Hospital
Most information compiled from the usual: Wikipedia, County Asylums, Historic Hospitals and otter such websites.
County Asylums
Wikipedia
Historic Hospitals
That being noted, there isn't too much (that I could find) to speak of without going off track.
The first sightings of an asylum on the site came around 1902 following the opening with patients transferred to the premises known as Stone House Asylum.
The opening of the asylum was preceded by the declaration Canterbury becoming its own independent borough with the requirement of mental health services being fulfilled by facilities elsewhere until one within the borough could be established.
The construction of the asylum also established Canterbury as the smallest borough with an asylum although the capacity of around 250 beds reflected this.
It presumably wasn't expected that capacity would be reached and therefore this opened the site up as a profitable venture providing additional capacity to other facilities such as Oakwood Hospital (Kent County Asylum) and St Augustine's (East Kent Asylum) with this also being a driving factor in construction. This fact would later become the soul purpose, acting as overflow, of the hospital buildings.
Actual design and construction was undertaken by William Joseph Jennings of Canterbury between 1900 and 1902.
Buildings were constructed as two storied structures interconnected by corridors formed as a compacted arrow head pavilion formation similar to many other asylums with a recreation hall, kitchens and other amenities in the centre with the wards to the east and west.
The design at the time was a now common variation of the pavilion design meaning that the footprint of this already small asylum was again compacted.
The administration building was a separate structure north of the main buildings although it failed to survive much past the Second World War.
Following the Second and First World War changes were made in regards to naming and management of the facility.
During the Inter-War period the name Canterbury City Mental Hospital was given to the site with Asylum substituted to Hospital following the gradual social rejection of the term Asylum.
Following the second war and the formation of the NHS the Hospital fell into the South East Metropolitan Board under the management control of nearby St Augustine's with the name soon changed to St Martins Hospital relating it now to the nearby church. From this point these management changes slowly saw St Martins evolve into a short-stay and overflow facility for St Augustine's and Chartham.
This change in use, become focused on short stay operations, saw the implementation of more daytime wards within the hospital.
Management changes would again take place in the mid 70's seeing the hospital fall under the South-East Thames region within the Canterbury and Thanet Districts.
Taking effect and impacting all facilities like this the Care In The Community policy began to see numbers at St Matins decline especially among the more residential areas rather than the daytime wards. With that the same policy soon lead to the closure of St Augustine's and the daytime units built to the east of St Martin's to take on the additional numbers.
Patient numbers within steadily declined from the 80's until the older wards and the original hospital were closed and sold to Homes England in around 2019.
Anyway, the explore.
As said this place had been mentioned a few times prior and it sat on the list for a little while. During the week prior Dragon gave me a message with the plan of giving this place a shot. Sure, why not.
Hospital layout
Adapted from maps found within.
After waking up early and arriving in Canterbury half deafened around two hours later, we both re-organized the car and headed to the buildings. Having been talking about how we would conduct this explore we were both fairly relaxed heading onto the grounds and walking around the site. Siting the security cabin and knowing we had not been sighted our confidence grew as we orbited the buildings.
Dragon lead the way in, being a local man enthused with the place, with great amounts of ease as we clambered into the building. Once inside we wandered through the lecture theatres straight into the main hall.
The main hall, although modernised, had an impressive feel like most asylum halls. The best way to describe this hall and the entire place is in comparison to a modernised, recently closed, and emptied asylum but on a shrunken scale.
Through the folding doors at the end the hall, it had been divided to form a small chapel.
The corridors took up the vast majority of interest as they escorted us into the wards at both wings of the building.
Just across the corridor from the hall we find the Kitchen and its adjoining rooms.
As we headed west towards the Edmund and Fisher wards as well as the Ramsey Day Ward along with the Lang Ward it was noticed that scrapping of copper wire had begun to take place although very rapidly abandoned.
Breaking off from the order in which things took place among the first visit we start off with the Fisher and Edmund wards.
These were some of the most photogenic areas of the hospital with the dormitory ward having a very appealing colour pallet complimenting the other details inside.
Round the corner a large bay window and red floor create another area of interest with the staircase mixing the colours up furthermore.
Pink!
Bathing and washroom areas.
Downstairs in the Edmund ward the hospital seems to return to a much more modernised theme with the more original details mostly obscured.
Projected off of three of the four blocks were modern prefabricated wards which varied wildly in condition. The one projected from Edmund was in the best of condition.
We briefly headed into the block for the Lang and Ramsey day hospital but figured not to bother grabbing any photos. The mortuary connected was also supposedly empty and looking through the hole in the door to it we figured not to bother with it. It also appeared towards this portion that a lot of training had taken place post-closure of the hospital.
Heading back round to the eastern portion of the hospital we began in the Crammer and Davidson wards which were presumably for younger patients.
Although empty these baths seemed to remain very much intact, presumably not worth removing.
The Davidson Ward on the first floor connected to the upper portion of the Abbot ward which had been converted to use for medical records.
Back downstairs, below the abbot ward, we find the lecture theatre and other areas now converted to non-clinical roles. This area did seem to show early signs of decay with bubbling paint and rotting walls.
Continued
As said this place had been mentioned a few times prior and it sat on the list for a little while. During the week prior Dragon gave me a message with the plan of giving this place a shot. Sure, why not.
Hospital layout
Adapted from maps found within.
After waking up early and arriving in Canterbury half deafened around two hours later, we both re-organized the car and headed to the buildings. Having been talking about how we would conduct this explore we were both fairly relaxed heading onto the grounds and walking around the site. Siting the security cabin and knowing we had not been sighted our confidence grew as we orbited the buildings.
Dragon lead the way in, being a local man enthused with the place, with great amounts of ease as we clambered into the building. Once inside we wandered through the lecture theatres straight into the main hall.
The main hall, although modernised, had an impressive feel like most asylum halls. The best way to describe this hall and the entire place is in comparison to a modernised, recently closed, and emptied asylum but on a shrunken scale.
Through the folding doors at the end the hall, it had been divided to form a small chapel.
The corridors took up the vast majority of interest as they escorted us into the wards at both wings of the building.
Just across the corridor from the hall we find the Kitchen and its adjoining rooms.
As we headed west towards the Edmund and Fisher wards as well as the Ramsey Day Ward along with the Lang Ward it was noticed that scrapping of copper wire had begun to take place although very rapidly abandoned.
Breaking off from the order in which things took place among the first visit we start off with the Fisher and Edmund wards.
These were some of the most photogenic areas of the hospital with the dormitory ward having a very appealing colour pallet complimenting the other details inside.
Round the corner a large bay window and red floor create another area of interest with the staircase mixing the colours up furthermore.
Pink!
Bathing and washroom areas.
Downstairs in the Edmund ward the hospital seems to return to a much more modernised theme with the more original details mostly obscured.
Projected off of three of the four blocks were modern prefabricated wards which varied wildly in condition. The one projected from Edmund was in the best of condition.
We briefly headed into the block for the Lang and Ramsey day hospital but figured not to bother grabbing any photos. The mortuary connected was also supposedly empty and looking through the hole in the door to it we figured not to bother with it. It also appeared towards this portion that a lot of training had taken place post-closure of the hospital.
Heading back round to the eastern portion of the hospital we began in the Crammer and Davidson wards which were presumably for younger patients.
Although empty these baths seemed to remain very much intact, presumably not worth removing.
The Davidson Ward on the first floor connected to the upper portion of the Abbot ward which had been converted to use for medical records.
Back downstairs, below the abbot ward, we find the lecture theatre and other areas now converted to non-clinical roles. This area did seem to show early signs of decay with bubbling paint and rotting walls.
Continued
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