High Royds Asylum
High Royds opened 1888 as the 'West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum' in the small village of Menston, Yorkshire.
Designed by architect Edward J.Vickers, the hospital encompasses a broad arrow layout with the male and female patients divided into opposing sides of the solid stone built administration block.
A fully self-sufficient site, the Asylum boasted its own railway line and train station, vast surgical operating theatres, a Church, lavish ballroom, onsite patient's shop, four separate farms, a bakery and a mortuary.
During the hospital's zenith, nearly 3,000 patients were living on site; sadly 900 recorded patients passed away in the asylum and were buried nearby in un-marked graves.
To address this issue the hospital purchased further grounds to accommodate the dead and later in 1963 was re-named from 'West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum' to 'High Royds'.
The asylum finally closed its doors in 2003 and after 5 years of solitude and decay, housing re-developers have begun conversion work.
