Aston Hall Mental Hospital is located on the edge of the pretty village of Aston-On-Trent just outside Derby and is in fact one of two mental hospitals that served the city, the other being the Derby Borough Lunatic Asylum, a large, rather aged Victorian red brick classical asylum. The hospital is built in a villa layout on a site of some 3.2 acres. Originally the land which had been part of the Aston Hall estate was bought in 1924 and the hospital was opened in the 1930,s. Each of the villas housed up to 50 patients but as the years passed the number gradually declined, especially with the advent of "Care In The Community". By writing was on the wall for Aston Hall. The last 58 long term, chronic patients were farmed out to other hospitals in the surrounding area and the doors of "the village" as it was known locally, were finally closed in 2004. It is unclear as to what is on the cards for the site though it seems likely that they will demolish the buildings, none of which are listed, to make way for an extension of the housing estate.
