thumb|Clock tower at rear

thumb|Water tank

Friern Hospital (formerly Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum) was a psychiatric hospital in the parish of Friern Barnet close to a crossroads which had a hamlet known as Colney Hatch. In 1965, it became part of the London Borough of Barnet and in the early 21st century was converted to residential housing as Princess Park Manor and Friern Village. The hospital was built as the Second Middlesex County Asylum and was in operation from 1851 to 1993. After the County of London was created in 1889 it continued to serve much of Middlesex and of the newer county, London. During much of this time its smaller prototype Hanwell Asylum also operated.

At its height, Colney Hatch was home to 2,500 mental patients and had the longest corridor in Britain (It would take a visitor more than two hours to walk the wards). For much of the 20th century, its name was synonymous among Londoners with any mental institution.

The asylum with its surrounding fields, gardens and recreation grounds adjoined Friern Barnet Road and is shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1868–1883, which labels the nascent settlement of New Southgate under a popular developers' name Colney Hatch Park. Today that larger community is the core area of New Southgate in the London Borough of Enfield. The map shows the large asylum which resembled closely the new settlement in size. Friern Barnet is today used fairly interchangeably with New Southgate for the area west of the Great Northern Railwaya short path from the asylum led to the station built to serve it, New Southgate railway station, which moved a short distance and remains. The station had five earlier names: the changes demonstrate a gradual erasure of the small place name "Colney Hatch" from the public psyche and in general public use.

History

Early history

thumb|right|Drawing and floor plan of the Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum

The building of the asylum was commissioned by the Middlesex Court of Magistrates, as the Second Middlesex County Asylum. The site was the former Hollick Wood, Colney Hatch. The architect was Samuel Daukes, whose Italianate corridor-plan design was based on the advice of John Conolly, the superintendent of the First Middlesex County Asylum. The foundation stone was laid by the Prince Consort in 1849, and the building was completed in November 1850. The cost of building had been estimated at £150,000, but the final cost actually proved to be £300,000, making it the most expensive asylum ever built, at £240 per bed. The estate had its own water supply, a chapel, cemetery and a 75-acre farm estate. It also had a gasworks, brewery, and an aviary where canaries were bred.

alt=Entertainment for patients at the Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum, Colney Hatch|thumb|Entertainment for patients at Middlesex County Asylum, 1853

The asylum was opened on 17 July 1851 by Prince Albert Its Chairman from 1862 to 1890 was Sir William Henry Wyatt.

thumb|Watercolour architectural elevation of the 'Clock and Watchmaker's Asylum, Colney Hatch' by unknown artist, circa 1855

In 1857 extensions were built to bring the total number of inmates to 2,000. By this time, serious defects of construction had become apparent: in one ward the walls and rafters separated and the arched ceiling gave way while in another ward part of the ceiling collapsed. It was found that the roof was insufficient and that the foundations were insecure, necessitating reinforcement works in 1858. In its place, between 1908 and 1913 seven new permanent brick villas were built: four for the survivors of the fire, one for boys with epilepsy or "disturbed behaviour" and two for patients with tuberculosis or dysentery. In 1912 a disused carpenters' shop and stores by the railway siding were converted into additional accommodation for male patients and further extensions were made to staff accommodation in 1927, by which time staff included 9 full-time doctors, 494 nurses and 171 probationers.

Radio Friern

The hospital's internal broadcasting service started in 1971 after funds were raised by Minchenden Grammar School. Initially broadcasting to six wards from a studio in the patients' social club, the station expanded to cover most wards and departments within the hospital. Radio Friern moved to a new studio in premises originally occupied by the hospital dentist in 1975 increasing its broadcasting hours by the early 1980s to include programmes airing six days a week. The station continued to broadcast until the hospital's closure in 1993. Reference to the radio service in Barbara Taylor's book The Last Asylum is incorrect. Radio Friern was staffed by volunteers with day jobs away from the hospital, no patients were involved. Programmes would typically start at 5 pm weeknights as the first volunteers finished work. The weekend schedule started at 9 am. Staffed by no more than 25 people, Radio Friern was Friern Hospital's 'Big Little Station'.

Decline and closure

In 1973 the number of patients had been reduced to 1,500, and by 1979 the hospital had only 1,023 beds.

In 1989 it was decided that the hospital should close and its patients reintegrated into the community where possible. Closure came in 1993, and the building and grounds were sold to Luke and Brian Comer's Comer Homes in 1995. The building was converted into luxury flats called Princess Park Manor.

  • Jenny Diski, an English writer, briefly stayed at the hospital.
  • John Duffy, British serial killer and rapist.
  • Maria Teresa Ferrari de Miramar (also Sanchez), one of Aleister Crowley's wives.
  • Rahel Hirsch, first female medical professor in Prussia.
  • Aaron Kosminski, Hyam Hyams and David Cohen, Jack the Ripper suspects.
  • Dorothy Lawrence, a journalist who dressed as a man to report on the front lines of World War I.
  • Barbara Taylor, then a young historian, was admitted in 1988 following a nervous breakdown. Decades later, she wrote The Last Asylum: A Memoir Of Madness In Our Times.

The asylum is alluded to in P.G. Wodehouse's novel The Code of the Woosters. When Wodehouse's famous Jeeves and Wooster are discussing their latest predicament, Jeeves suggests that a character is eccentric, to which Wooster responds: "Eccentric? She could step straight into Colney Hatch, and no questions asked."

In G. K. Chesterton's The Man who was Thursday, the asylum is referenced as a byword for madness in the following dialog: “Your offer,” he said, “is far too idiotic to be declined. You say that a poet is always an anarchist. I disagree; but I hope at least that he is always a sportsman. Permit me, here and now, to swear as a Christian, and promise as a good comrade and a fellow-artist, that I will not report anything of this, whatever it is, to the police. And now, in the name of Colney Hatch, what is it?”

The asylum is again referenced (as a byword for madness) in chapter 8 of the children's novel The Magician's Nephew, part of the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S Lewis: when Jadis proclaims herself as an Empress and demands that residents of London bow to her, they jeeringly respond by saying in Cockney dialect, "Three cheers for the Hempress of Colney 'atch!"

Lindsay Anderson's 1982 film Britannia Hospital used the hospital's buildings and entrance gates for exterior scenes.

Will Self's 2012 novel Umbrella is largely set in the hospital. It also features in Margaret Drabble's The Pure Gold Baby.

See also

  • Healthcare in London

References

  • Princess Park Manor Development
  • History & Photographs of the Colney Hatch Asylum
  • Lost Hospitals of London - Friern Hospital