St. Mary's Hospital was a psychiatric facility located in the village of

Burghill Burghill is a village and civil parish in Herefordshire, England, north-west of Hereford. The parish includes the villages of Burghill, Tillington, Herefordshire, Tillington, Portway and Eltons Marsh. It was originally a small village of farms ...

, Herefordshire.

History

Herefordshire initially utilised subscription asylum premises within the Hereford General Infirmary site and following the 1845 act entered into agreement with the Welsh counties of

Monmouthshire Monmouthshire ( ; ) is a Principal areas of Wales, county in the South East Wales, south east of Wales. It borders Powys to the north; the English counties of Herefordshire and Gloucestershire to the north and east; the Severn Estuary to the s ...

Radnorshire Radnorshire () was Historic counties of Wales, one of the thirteen counties of Wales that existed from 1536 until their abolishment in 1974, later becoming a Districts of Wales, district of Powys from 1974 to 1996. It covered a sparsely populat ...

and

Breconshire Brecknockshire ( or ), also known as the County of Brecknock, Breconshire, or the County of Brecon, was one of the thirteen counties of Wales that existed from 1536 until their abolishment in 1974. It was created in 1536 under the Laws in Wales ...

to construct the joint counties premises at

Abergavenny Abergavenny (; , , archaically , ) is a market town and Community (Wales), community in Monmouthshire, Wales. Abergavenny is promoted as a "Gateway to Wales"; it is approximately from the England–Wales border, border with England and is loca ...

. Breakdown of the union led to Herefordshire providing its own asylum located close to the County Town of

Hereford Hereford ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of the ceremonial county of Herefordshire, England. It is on the banks of the River Wye and lies east of the border with Wales, north-west of Gloucester and south-west of Worcester. With ...

. The facility was designed by architect Robert Griffiths, County Surveyor of Staffordshire, and the construction, which cost £87,873, started in 1868. It opened as the Hereford County and City Lunatic Asylum in August 1871. There were a further 100 acres of gardens, a farm and several cottages. The main asylum was divided into a block for men and one for women, each wing constructed to house 200 patients. The 1881 census reveals that few were under 20 years of age and again few were over 70. The head attendant, a 61-year old male, had become a private patient himself. The asylum appears to have been a well-run establishment and seems to have met with the approval of the Committee of Visitors in the years leading up to 1889. The chairman, B.L.S. Stanhope, expressed his satisfaction that "since the Asylum was opened, there is no record of any death of a homicidal or suicidal character; a fact testifying to the careful supervision exercised over the patients." The facility was extended to a design by John Giles, Gough and Trollope in the early 20th century. It was renamed Burghill Mental Hospital in the 1930s. It joined the

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the term for the publicly funded health care, publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care (Northern ...

in 1948 and was subsequently renamed St. Mary's Hospital, taking its name from the local parish church, in the 1930s. The hospital closed in 1994 and main building was subsequently demolished.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Marys Hospital, Burghill Hospital buildings completed in 1871 1868 establishments in England 1994 disestablishments in England Hospitals disestablished in 1994 Defunct hospitals in England Demolished buildings and structures in Herefordshire Former psychiatric hospitals in England Hospitals established in 1868 Hospitals in Herefordshire