High Royds Asylum, Memorial Garden & Pumphouse

[JMC1412]

Visited with Nicola, Boxerheaven, Mickeylove and a soon to be member. The asylum itself has been a forum regular of late, but I didn't get too far around the place before getting a bad feeling about the security knocking around (a feeling which turned true later for Nicola). I was the only one to make it inside the pumphouse though - the joys of being a short-arse.

High Royds Asylum in West Yorkshire first opened in 1888 as the West Ridings Pauper Lunatic Asylum, and finally closed in 2003. Through the bluebell carpeted woods, lies the hospital pump-house. The woods, despite being colourful and bright, still possess a very sombre atmosphere - as many of the asylum patients escaped into the woods to hang themselves.

The newly refurbished Memorial Garden lies along the side of the railway, and to anybody looking in, they would see what looks like an empty field. This "empty field" is in fact a burial ground for 2861 people from the asylum, lying in unmarked graves. There are only 4 headstones in the entire cemetary. Sadly, some of the famillies were too poor to take the bodies back and give them a proper funeral, so the bodies were buried here. Even sadder is the fact that madness was seen to be hereditary, so some family left their patient at the asylum never to be thought of again.

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Thanks for looking!