High Royds Hospital

High Royds hospital is a now-closed psychiatric hospital south of the village of Menston, West Yorkshire, England. The hospital is located in the City of Leeds metropolitan borough as the border with the City of Bradford metropolitan borough passes between the hospital and the village. It was first opened on 8 October 1888, as the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum, and was closed on 25 February 2003. Although this date is given in the High Royds book the final two wards, office, canteen etc did not close until June 2003.

A truly magnificent example of Vickers Edwards architecture, it is arguably the finest example of the broad arrow layout.

The administration building, which is Grade II listed, is now considered something of a show piece at the former hospital, which is situated on a convert|300|acre|km2|sing=on site at the foot of Rombalds Moor.

It hosts an Italian mosaic floor in the main corridor which is intricately decorated with the Yorkshire Rose and some black daisies - the latter of which provided inspiration for the title of a television screen play, filmed at High Royds, as a tribute to sufferers of Alzheimers.

The hospital once contained a library, a surgery, a dispensary, butchers, dairies, bakers, a sweetshop, an upholster's, a cobbler's, spacious grounds, a ballroom and even a railway. The patients lived in Nightingale wards (named after Florence Nightingale), rather than the individual accommodation found in the more recent mental health units.

More recently however it had been considered outdated, and as part of Leeds Mental Health's £47 million reprovision process it was closed, with the wards being relocated to various community mental health units in the City of Leeds, in the three years leading up to its closure. These include The Becklin Centre in St James' Hospital and The Mount (Hospital) in the city centre.

Since its closure, the site has been used as a film set for the film "Asylum", as well as for the television series "No Angels and Bodies".

There are now plans to convert the site into a new village, also called High Royds, retaining some features of the hospital, such as the ballroom and the clock tower.

Leeds band Kaiser Chiefs have written a song ('Highroyds') about the former hospital. Three of the band (Nick Hodgson, Nick 'Peanut' Baines and Simon Rix) used to attend St Mary's Roman Catholic Comprehensive School, the school that faces High Royds hospital.

External links

* [http://www.highroydshospital.co.uk/ High Royds Historical Archive]
* [http://www.highroyds.co.uk/ High Royds Village]