Not on the usual tourist trail in York, but this is an interesting and attractive building which currently has an uncertain future.
It has quite a history too. In 1772, Robert Hay Drummond, the Archbishop of York, decided along with ‘twenty-four Yorkshire gentlemen’ to establish an asylum, to be known as the ‘County Lunatic Asylum, York’. By July 1773, £5,000 had been promised, and the architect John Carr's scheme to accommodate 54 patients was approved on 25 August. The building was completed in 1777.
Following criticism about the handling of inmates at the asylum and the death of Hannah Mills, who was a Quaker, the local Quaker community founded a new asylum known as The Retreat in 1790. The original asylum became Bootham Park Hospital in 1904 and it joined the National Health Service in 1948.
In late September 2015 the hospital was declared unfit by the Care Quality Commission, and ordered to close by the end of the month. Staff were given 5 days notice to close the building. The hospital was closed on 1 October 2015. On the same day Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys Foundation NHS Trust replaced Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust as the provider of most mental health services in York. Patients were transferred at short notice to other premises, some quite a distance from York, in places like Middlesborough.
A new mental health unit is due to open on a different site later this year. Earlier this year the site of Bootham Park Hospital was put up for sale, much to the dismay of local people who feared that the extensive parkland in front of the building would be built on. Little progress seems to have been made with the sale, so we await developments.
It would be a great shame if such a building were to be lost. I work in hospital management and it is an unfortunate fact that most hospital buildings have severe backlog maintenance issues which renders them very expensive to convert. Let's hope this one survives in some form.
A beautiful capture of a beautiful building. How sad it would be to lose a historic building like this. Greed for money has no limits and if it is sold to the wrong persons it will be lost forever.
Thank you all for your comments and fav, they are very much appreciated.
To be a bit more positive about this building, it is listed Grade 1, so it is likely to survive in some form. The most likely future use is as a hotel, since many large buildings in the city have and are being converted to hotels.
@ninaganci Thank you Nina - the car park is quite small and was used by medical staff for parking. Beyond that is a large area, mainly of rather neglected grass. If the money were available it would make a super park!
what a magnificent building, such a shame it was such an unsuitable mental health hospital - but if developed sympathetically it could be converted into very swish flats - I've seen similar warehouses done well
@shannejw Ironically many patients loved the place, but things move on. It is most likely to become a hotel (since that is likely to bring in most money for the NHS when it is sold), but flats would be good, since there is quite a serious housing shortage in York.
Ian
June 24th, 2019
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Thank you all for your comments and fav, they are very much appreciated.
To be a bit more positive about this building, it is listed Grade 1, so it is likely to survive in some form. The most likely future use is as a hotel, since many large buildings in the city have and are being converted to hotels.
Ian
Ian
Ian
Ian
Ian