The North Wales Hospital was originally conceived in 1842 following a letter sent to the London Times by Dr Samuel Hitch the medical superintendent of the Gloucester Lunatic Asylum. His letter concerned the poor treatment of Welsh speakers who were forced to seek treatment in English asylums due to a lack of facilities in their home country. The response to the negative publicity was overwhelming in the counties of north Wales, at that time the Welsh speaking heartland. Barely a month after the letters publication a meeting of interested parties met at Denbigh Infirmary to discuss the construction of an Asylum to serve the Welsh speaking communities of North Wales. Joseph Ablett a local land owner made 20 acres of land a mile to the south of Denbigh available to the project.

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Progress on the project was initially slow, the original provisions of the firsr County Asylum Act in 1808, allowed for the construction of asylums to serve a single county and explicitly forbid counties from collaborating on such projects. The relativly poor agricultural counties of North Wales couldn't support the construction of an asylum on their own, So the commissioners in five of the six counties of North Wales formed a committee to finance and build an asylum to serve their communities, but lobbying Parliament to achieve suitable amendments to the act delayed the start of construction. The amendments that were eventually made to the Lunacy Act also cleared the way for a further two joint Asylums to serve Mid and West Wales.

It took some years to gain parliamentary approval for amendments to the Lunacy Laws, before construction work could began in 1844. The hospital was the first asylum to be built in Wales and was constructed to plans drawn up by Thomas Fulljames of Fulljames and Waller Architects, Gloucester. The original Asylum buildings consisted of a u shaped building in ‘Tudorbethan’ style built of locally sourced limestone ashlar, with sandstone dressings and slate roofs from Snowdonia surmounted by a elegant four faced clock tower. After three years construction work was finished and the first patients were admitted to the newly named “North Wales Counties of Caernarvonshire, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Merionethshire and Anglesey Asylum” on the 14th of November 1848.

The original treatment plan and management of the hospital is noted for its benign attitude to the patients, the early hospital was surrounded by a series of walled gardens which the patients were encouraged to tend. A Hospital farm was soon added along with stables and a milking shed all worked by patients. The Hospital was extended in 1867 closing the rear of the original U-shaped building and adding a further two wards to each wing. Further extensions and were carried out up until 1956. notably the addition of further wards to each wing in 1889 and the Main hall and kitchen complex added in 1908. As the asylum grew in size the methods of managing patents changed the 1920’s saw the introduction of physical treatments for mental Illness such as malarial treatment and insulin shock therapy.

The last Large scale expansion of the asylum took place in 1934 with the addition of a separate nurses accommodation block which allowed the conversion of the original nurses accommodation in the main building in additional wards along with Erdigg isolation ward. By this time treatment focused on confining and managing patient’s behavior, the farm buildings which had fallen into disuse were sold off. The early 1940’s saw the introduction of more radical physical treatments such as Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT) and the Prefrontal Leucotomy (lobotomy). Dr Walter Freeman known as the farther of the labotomy visited the hospital during this period to demonstrate his Ice Pick lobotomy methods, which was first used in the hospital in 1942. 24 patients, who had failed to respond to other treatments typically Electro Convulsive Therapy, or whose behavior placed the most demands on the nursing staff were selected for the surgery which was performed by local GP's or general surgeons when one was available. The results of the operations were described as "successful" although on patient died while undergoing surgery.The 1950’s saw the growth in the use of tranquilizers the "medicinal straight jacket" to keep patients calm and manageable. which lead to a decline in the use of surgical measures.

In 1960, Enoch Powell the then minister for health visited the hospital and shortly after announced the Hospital Plan for England and Wales, which outlined a move towards community care backed up with psychiatric facilities attached to general hospitals rather than in specific metal hospitals. This plan was the beginning of along drawn out process which lead to the final closure of North Wales Hospital and others like it. And although it escaped accusations of cruelty leveled at other asylums during the 1970’s the number of inpatients was steadily reduced until in 1987, 10 year phased closure plan was announced. The main building was closed in 1995 and the final patients were transferred from outlying buildings to a psychiatric unit at Wrexham Maellor hospital in 2002.

The North Wales hospital was the first grand asylum I visited and it certainly made its mark, the first sight of the hospital as you crest the hill between it and the town of Denbigh certainly makes an impression. The ventilation towers on the wards and it's tall clock tower give the old hospital a fairytale quality. It took a few minuets to notice the damage to the roof and smashed half opened windows then the marks of 10 years of dereliction made a sharp contrast to its victorian grandeur. After the hospital closed it quickly fell on hard times its first private owner systematically stripped the hospital for any thing worthy of architectural salvage doors fire places and cast iron radiators were removed and sold off for a quick profit. Combined with the actions of lead thieves the decline of the hospital buildings was inevitable, Some audacious thieves even abseiled the hospital clock towers to remove the clock faces.

For a long time the hospital buildings had been left wide open an easy target for the local kids who have left a trail of graffiti throughout the hospitals corridors. Shortly before I visited the hospital the interest of the Prince of Wales regeneration trust had led to a wide spread project to re secure the hospitals buildings, but fortunately one door had been over looked even though it was flapping freely in the breeze, it was thorough this door that i first stepped into a lunatic Asylum.

The right hand side of the administration building was occupied by doctors offices thou these are now empty and bare, Dr Robinson's name was still attached to one of these doors. following a quick look round we headed to the main feature of the admin block the clock tower, carefully climbing up staircase after staircase we reached the clock room near the top, not only have the clock faces been stolen from the tower but the entire mechanism has been removed, rumor has it the clock now graces a mansion house somewhere in Cheshire. As I climbed up the tower it was hard to miss the many signatures on the walls it seems a climb of the clock tower was an initiation rite for the hospital staff back to the hospitals earliest days many had signed at dated the walls as a memorial to their first climb the higher you climb the earlier the dates become.

After viewing the administration building we headed back into the heart of the hospital making our way through the interlinked wards on the northern half of the hospital. Most of the wards appeared to be of a similar design though their style and decoration varied. Unlike the large open rooms of the nightingale ward we saw earlier most of the wards consisted of a communal corridor along one side with private rooms along the other. The wards today are empty and stripped and are mostly unremarkable so I wont dwell to long over them. The most interesting was the Bala, Brenig block which seemed to be one of the last in the main building to be vacated. It was decorated in typical 1980's hospital style, the industrial strength carpet was identical to one which used to decorate my doctors surgery probably a standard NHS design. The modernisation of Bala and Brenig could have been the last material investment the hospital received. Despite the dull 80's decor the block was one of the most charming wards on the site. The stairwell between the first and second floor wards was decorated with a mural of canonists painted by patients during their art therapy, and a second mural of a doctor tending a giraffe welcomed visitors to Brenig Ward. We also found some evidence of the hospitals working life, in the ward offices scattered across the floor were the night reports from various wards.

Now that we had seen the majority of the hospital's main building we headed back out the same way to take a look at some of the out buildings. The main one we hoped to find was the hospital mortuary which we knew was close to the back of the building, it took a little while to find the unassuming little building which looked little more than a storage shed from the outside but inside it was a small but fully equipped. The base for single mortuary slab stood in the center of the room with a skylight above to provide the mortician with plenty of natural light while he worked, but the slab is no longer complete. Someone has attempted to remove it, and it has split in two during the attempt, only one part of it now remains. An anti room at the back of the mortuary held the single column rack of mortuary fridges which could have held a total of three bodies its was almost identical to the fridge i would later see at Barrow Hospital.

The final stop on my visit to Denbigh was the secure unit Erdigg ward at the back of the site, Originally built as an isolation ward back in 1931 it was converted to house the hospitals most extreme cases in the 1970's with an additional single story extension. Although it is now badly vandalised and has been used by North Wales Police to practice wall breaching techniques, you can still get an impression of the buildings former use. The heavily re enforced doors and one way mirror observation windows on seclusion rooms give the unit a more menacing atmosphere than the main buildings. The secure unit was the last part of the hospital to close in 2002. It is rumored that in the last weeks before colsure the hospital staff allowed the patients to get away with writing on the walls, all around the secure unit are farewell's to the hospital that many patients called home. One room christened the swamp has been decorated with the chemical formula of the various drugs its inhabitant was taking. Whether on not these scrawls were made by patients or a later visitor they certainly make interesting reading. Once finished with with the secure unit we left the hospital behind stopping only for a half hearted attempt to climb the towering coal silo's, but the sight of an Alsatian loose near the hospital gates told us it was time to leave.