Report - Harperbury Asylum Main Hall and Services, Radlett, Hertfordshire - September 2015

[Els]

Nice to see something new from this place... still no sign of the row of padded cells. I reckon we'll be debating that years after the entire sites been flattened!

There is still one building that still has a high security fence around it and the last time I was there (three of four years ago) there was a "row" of small rooms that could easily be mistaken for padded cells. Or if they were padded the interiors have long since been removed. Here is one of the doors, I don't have a pic of all of them.

There was also the contents of a ripped out padded cell around the school area dumped outside for years but no one had any idea where that came from.

 

[mockney reject]

We saw that door, the building is now trashed

 

[tumbles]

There is still one building that still has a high security fence around it and the last time I was there (three of four years ago) there was a "row" of small rooms that could easily be mistaken for padded cells. Or if they were padded the interiors have long since been removed. Here is one of the doors, I don't have a pic of all of them.

There was also the contents of a ripped out padded cell around the school area dumped outside for years but no one had any idea where that came from.

This goes back to the image posted on here in 2006 by Nutbolt where it was litterally a row (4-5 of them) in one ward corridor. I asked Pete C of County Asylums fame about them as he used to explore with her and he said:
The multiple padded cells at Harperbury, they were located in either 7 or 9 meadow avenue in a block for epileptic men, hence why there were so many in one place. No. 5,6,7 & 9 Meadow avenue were all single storey and were bulldozed very early on so that's why the cells weren't found by other explorers.

So I guess nobody will ever find them.. just be nice if Nutbolt could reappear and post the pics up again!

 

[Els]

^ Cheers, interesting. I must have just missed them myself.

 

[elliot5200]

Great stuff slayaa, nice to see some fresh things here

 

[mattdonut]

nice to see another hall
good work

 

[Heroic J]

Nice one mateys! My site

 

[Ferox]

Cracking report there mate The hall is epic. Thanks for the share.

 

[Session9]

Good to see this place again. Makes a change from the shit around the football pitch.

 

[slayaaaa]

Cheers

 

[Max123]

All, as I work on this site I thought I might update you on the plans for the site.

The admin block, old kitchen, De Sallis Hall, Boiler room, Old Laundry, Morgue (Later converted to IT Training) were all emptied last week and along with all the other boarded up buildings are due to be flattened as early as January, ready for Bloor homes to build a housing estate. There are over 3km of tunnels that weave under all the buildings that carried the services. I should know as we had to drop into them to carry out repairs etc to services. I have attached a drawing that shows what the hospital layout was like. Since this drawing there have been several additions, notably the new Kingfisher Court Hospital which meant the flattening of many of the buildings you have mentioned previously and those that housed the padded cells.

Security is still present on the site and there has been a lot of activity at night reported.

 

[slayaaaa]

Thanks for that! That's really interesting. I knew the morgue was there somewhere. Odd that it was converted fo IT training...

 

[Max123]

It was a few years ago now that it was converted. I think that once it stopped becoming an operational asylum and became more of a training site for HPuFT then the morgue was not needed. Nevertheless must have been weird sitting in a building that was a morgue. I had a walk around several of the buildings last week and with it being deathly quiet you get to think what went on in the walls.
The tunnels are something else too even though some have been backfilled to allow building work, when we had to trace a leak we walked, sorry crouched and crawled for what seemed miles. I think we covered 75% of the accessible tunnels as some were blocked up to stop thieves getting to them and stealing copper etc. Several of the building have all their taps missing and in one the electrical distribution board has had all the cable removed!!

 

[tumbles]

That map is really intresting, although confused by meddow avenue and close. Would tally up with what Pete C told me though.

 

[Max123]

Here is another that may or may not make things clearer lol.