Difference between revisions of "Portal:Featured Article Of The Week"

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|Title= Claybury Hospital
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|Title= San Antonio State Hospital
|Image= claybury5.png
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|Image= SanAntonioTX_SH_PC_01_WEBEDIT.jpg
 
|Width= 150px
 
|Width= 150px
|Body= In the 1880s the Justices of the County of Middlesex planned to build a fourth County Asylum to relieve overcrowding in the Hanwell, Friern Barnet and Banstead Asylums. The Claybury Hall estate at Woodford Bridge, Essex, was purchased in January 1887 as the site for the new asylum at a cost of £36,000. Other lands bordering the estate were also bought, and the total cost of the 269-acre site was £39,415.
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|Body= In 1889 the Texas legislature passed a bill establishing a state mental institution to serve Southwest Texas. The new facility was to occupy at least 640 acres and be capable of housing 500 patients. It was to be known as the Southwestern Insane Asylum (not the Southwestern Lunatic Asylum, as it has sometimes been called). A site was selected five miles south of San Antonio and $200,000 was appropriated for the new hospital. The facility began operation on April 6, 1892 with a capacity of 200 patients.
  
Claybury Hall was situated on the top of Tomswood Hill and its grounds included about 50 acres of ancient woodland and 95 acres of open parkland, ponds, pasture and historic gardens which had been designed in 1789 by the landscape architect Sir Humphrey Repton.
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In the first eight months of operation the patient population grew to 142. By August 23, 1894, there were 225 patients. Provisions for 300 more patients were authorized when $70,000 was appropriated in 1898, and in 1910, $100,000 was voted for expansion to accommodate an additional 300. This addition consisted of one wing each on the male and female departments and two buildings for tubercular. The improvements were completed in 1910 and the hospital could then accommodate 1,000 patients. In 1911 another appropriation of $45,000 was given to construct a building for 100 men, providing care to acute cases and all those who require extra attention. By 1912 the facilities could accommodate 1,140, and improvements were valued at $500,000. By 1915 the hospital's capacity was 1,800. In 1917 a training school for nurses in psychiatry was begun. This school, the only one of its kind in the state system, continued with a three-year course until 1942.  [[San Antonio State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
 
An architectural design competition was held, and won by George Thomas Hine, the acknowledged leading asylum architect in the country. His plan - a pioneering 'compact arrow design' - laid out the asylum in a smaller and more logical layout than previously used.
 
 
 
In March 1888 a granite-railed tramway was laid from the gate lodges (under construction) to the main site so that building work could begin in June. Two-thirds of the main buildings were to be erected on the summit of the hill but, first, some 100,000 cubic yards had to be sliced off to create a level platform of 12 acres. This took six months to do and, unfortunately, it then proved difficult to find firm foundations in the spongy subsoil. Building work then stopped altogether in December 1888 when the main contractor became bankrupt.  [[Claybury Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
 
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Revision as of 03:37, 7 March 2021

Featured Article Of The Week

San Antonio State Hospital


SanAntonioTX SH PC 01 WEBEDIT.jpg

In 1889 the Texas legislature passed a bill establishing a state mental institution to serve Southwest Texas. The new facility was to occupy at least 640 acres and be capable of housing 500 patients. It was to be known as the Southwestern Insane Asylum (not the Southwestern Lunatic Asylum, as it has sometimes been called). A site was selected five miles south of San Antonio and $200,000 was appropriated for the new hospital. The facility began operation on April 6, 1892 with a capacity of 200 patients.

In the first eight months of operation the patient population grew to 142. By August 23, 1894, there were 225 patients. Provisions for 300 more patients were authorized when $70,000 was appropriated in 1898, and in 1910, $100,000 was voted for expansion to accommodate an additional 300. This addition consisted of one wing each on the male and female departments and two buildings for tubercular. The improvements were completed in 1910 and the hospital could then accommodate 1,000 patients. In 1911 another appropriation of $45,000 was given to construct a building for 100 men, providing care to acute cases and all those who require extra attention. By 1912 the facilities could accommodate 1,140, and improvements were valued at $500,000. By 1915 the hospital's capacity was 1,800. In 1917 a training school for nurses in psychiatry was begun. This school, the only one of its kind in the state system, continued with a three-year course until 1942. Click here for more...