Roundway Hospital was a psychiatric hospital in the parish of
Roundway
Roundway is a hamlet and former civil parish adjacent to Devizes in the English county of Wiltshire. The hamlet lies about northeast of Devizes town centre.
In April 2017, Roundway civil parish was abolished and became a ward of Devizes paris ...
near
Devizes
Devizes is a market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. It developed around Devizes Castle, an 11th-century Norman architecture, Norman castle, and received a charter in 1141. The castle was besieged during the Anarchy, a 12th-century ...
,
Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...
, England. It was originally called the Wiltshire County Lunatic Asylum and later the Wiltshire County Mental Hospital. It opened in 1851 and closed in 1995.
History
Construction and inauguration
The hospital was conceived in 1848 by a committee of
Justices
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...
chaired by
Sir John Wither Awdry for "providing an asylum for the pauper lunatics of the county of Wiltshire alone".
Forty-eight acres of land was purchased from Mr T. H. S. Southeron at the end of Pans Lane in the parish of Roundway. The money was raised by loans from the government and other subscribers, to be paid back over 21 years.
Construction was started in 1849. The architect was
Thomas Henry Wyatt
Thomas Henry Wyatt (9 May 1807 – 5 August 1880) was an Anglo-Irish architect. He had a prolific and distinguished career, being elected President of the Royal Institute of British Architects 1870–73 and being awarded its Royal Gold Medal for A ...
, well known for his institutional architecture. The style was
Italianate
The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...
and the first phase cost £19,594. Construction was by T & W Piper, and the addition of ironwork by Knight & Co. for railings around the buildings cost a further £1,069.
The principal building material was stone from the Murhill quarries near
Winsley
Winsley is a large village and civil parish about west of Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire, England.
The parish includes the hamlets of Conkwell, Turleigh, Little Ashley and Great Ashley.
History
The area was probably farmed in Roman times, as ...
, and the roof slates came from Wales. The quarries were conveniently placed about 15 miles away along the
Kennet and Avon Canal
The Kennet and Avon Canal is a waterway in southern England with an overall length of , made up of two lengths of navigable river linked by a canal. The name is used to refer to the entire length of the navigation rather than solely to the cent ...
, which had opened some 50 years earlier. The slates were likewise transported by canal.
Developments in structure
The hospital was called the Wiltshire County Lunatic Asylum when it received its first inmates on 19 September 1851. When the hospital was first constructed it was insufficient to meet demand and extensions were added. This happened regularly as the population grew and it was only during the 1940s that no building extensions were added.
1858 saw a new female ward built, and in 1863–66 three more wards were added. Further wards were added in 1877. In 1890 a third storey was added to the main building. A house called Campfield House was built for the Physician Superintendent in 1892 and a recreation hall and engine room were added in 1898; in the same year the power source changed from gas to electricity. In 1922 the name of the hospital was changed to Wiltshire County Mental Hospital. In 1927 accommodation for nurses was built. 1935 saw a further building programme to increase accommodation and in 1937 the hospital chapel was completed.
Management and treatments
The first Medical Superintendent was Dr. Thurnham, a liberal
Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...
and well respected psychiatrist born near
York
York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
and who had spent some years at the
York Retreat
The Retreat, commonly known as the York Retreat, is a place in England for the treatment of people with mental disorders, mental health needs. Located in Lamel Hill in York, it operates as a Non-profit organisation, not for profit Charitable tru ...
. He was appointed in 1849 to enable him to work with Wyatt on the construction of the building. The hospital from its inception was managed by the Wiltshire Court of Quarter Sessions. In 1853 about 200 of the total of 333 patients were occupied on the hospital farm, in the kitchen, chopping wood or stonebreaking.
By 1880 cricket, bowls, country walks, theatricals and "
Christy Minstrels
Christy's Minstrels, sometimes referred to as the Christy Minstrels, were a blackface group formed by Edwin Pearce Christy, a well-known ballad singer, in 1843, in Buffalo, New York. They were instrumental in the solidification of the minstrel sh ...
" style shows were available for the patients.
In 1889 the hospital became the responsibility of
Wiltshire County Council
Wiltshire County Council (established in 1889) was the county council of Wiltshire in the South West of England, an elected local Government body responsible for most local government services in the county.
As a result of the 2009 restructur ...
.
In 1912 there were about 1,000 patients in the hospital, with seclusion and restraints still in common use, and some patients were transferred to the Dorset County Asylum in
Dorchester to relieve the overcrowding. From 1915 to 1920 the hospital was afflicted with outbreaks of
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
and
dysentery
Dysentery (UK pronunciation: , US: ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications ...
, which led to a negative inspectors' report.
An innovation in the early 1920s was the use of warm baths lasting up to seven hours, with the patient under a sheet and with boards across the bath to facilitate meals.
In 1928
occupational therapy
Occupational therapy (OT) is a global healthcare profession. It involves the use of assessment and intervention to develop, recover, or maintain the meaningful activities, or ''occupations'', of individuals, groups, or communities. The field of ...
was started, and in 1930
social workers
Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work ...
were employed.
1930 also saw the
Mental Treatment Act 1930
The Mental Treatment Act 1930 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom permitting voluntary admission to, and outpatient treatment within, psychiatric hospitals. It also replaced the term "asylum" with "mental hospital".
It was repealed ...
, which affected the rights of patients and reinforced the idea that asylums were hospitals.
During the 1930s, patients were attending entertainments outside the hospital, a "talking cinema apparatus" was installed in the hospital, and there was a canteen and library for patient use. Patients had also formed their own
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
and cricket teams.
Electroconvulsive therapy
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a psychiatry, psychiatric treatment where a generalized seizure (without muscular convulsions) is electrically induced to manage refractory mental disorders.Rudorfer, MV, Henry, ME, Sackeim, HA (2003)"Electroco ...
was introduced in 1942, followed by the first
prefrontal leucotomy
A lobotomy, or leucotomy, is a form of neurosurgical treatment for psychiatric disorder or neurological disorder (e.g. epilepsy) that involves severing connections in the brain's prefrontal cortex. The surgery causes most of the connections t ...
operation in the hospital in 1946.
In 1947 the
National Health Service
The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...
was established throughout the United Kingdom, and in 1948 the management of the hospital was transferred to the
Ministry of Health.
By the 1950s the hospital population was no longer increasing, and there were about 1,300 beds. Some patients were transferred to the Old Manor Hospital in
Salisbury
Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath.
Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...
and some to Old Park House, a large residential home in Devizes and a recent purchase by the Ministry of Health to provide better accommodation. It was managed from Roundway. Inspection reports mention less crowding and everything satisfactory.
The final years
The 1950s saw the introduction of
insulin coma therapy
Insulin shock therapy or insulin coma therapy was a form of psychiatric treatment in which patients were repeatedly injected with large doses of insulin in order to produce daily comas over several weeks.Neustatter WL (1948) ''Modern psychiatry ...
and
antidepressant
Antidepressants are a class of medication used to treat major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, chronic pain conditions, and to help manage addictions. Common side-effects of antidepressants include dry mouth, weight gain, dizziness, hea ...
s. The
Mental Health Act 1959
The Mental Health Act 1959 was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom concerning England and Wales which had, as its main objectives, to abolish the distinction between psychiatric hospitals and other types of hospitals and to deinstitui ...
brought further changes to the management of hospitals and patients. The laws relating to the detention of patients changed: all patients were deemed 'informal' and free to leave, with special procedures necessary to specifically detain a patient if required. There was a trend to move mental care away from large institutions and this coincided with the development of modern effective
antipsychotic drugs
Antipsychotics, also known as neuroleptics, are a class of psychotropic medication primarily used to manage psychosis (including delusions, hallucinations, paranoia or disordered thought), principally in schizophrenia but also in a range of oth ...
.
By the 1960s the number of beds had been reduced to 800, and up to 300 patients were earning a small wage working in a rehabilitative factory managed by a local firm.
The 1970s saw a further move to discharge people into the community, formalized in 1983 as the government policy of
Care in the Community
Care in the Community (also called "Community Care" or "Domiciliary Care") is a British policy of deinstitutionalisation, treating and caring for physically and mentally disabled people in their homes rather than in an institution. Institutional ca ...
.
The decision to close Roundway Hospital was finally made in the late 1980s, and in 1995 the remaining patients were transferred to the newly built
Green Lane Hospital
Green Lane Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in the Wick district of Devizes in Wiltshire, England. It is managed by the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust.
History
The hospital was built in 1990 in the grounds of Roundway ...
nearby. Roundway Hospital was decommissioned, and the land and buildings were sold for housing development.
Some of the hospital's records are held at the
Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre
The Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre in Chippenham, Wiltshire, England, serves as a focal point for heritage services relating to Wiltshire and Swindon. The centre opened in 2007 and is funded by Wiltshire Council and Swindon Borough Counci ...
.
See also
*
List of hospitals in England
The following is a list of hospitals in England. For NHS trusts, see the list of NHS Trusts.
East Midlands
* Arnold Lodge, Leicestershire
*Babington Hospital – Belper, Derbyshire
*Bassetlaw District General Hospital – Worksop, Nottinghams ...
References
Hospital buildings completed in 1851
Defunct hospitals in England
Devizes
Hospitals in Wiltshire
Hospitals established in 1851
1851 establishments in England
Former psychiatric hospitals in England
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