The Old Manor Hospital, Salisbury

The Old Manor Hospital was a psychiatric hospital in Salisbury Wiltshire, England. It functioned first as a Victorian private licensed house called Fisherton House or Fisherton House Asylum from the early 19th century.  It was the largest private madhouse in the United Kingdom. In 1924 following a change of proprietors it was renamed Old Manor Hospital and in 1955 it was amalgamated into the National Health Service. From 1813 to 1955 it was owned and managed by members of the same family. Between 1850 and 1870 the asylum accepted criminal lunatics, prior to the establishment of Broadmoor. Throughout its history it received pauper lunatics from local authority asylums all over the country, and particularly London. The Old Manor Hospital closed in 2003 and was replaced by Fountain Way, a smaller, modern, psychiatric hospital on part of the site of the Old Manor Hospital. 

The Explore

This place was an absolute hidden treasure as all the research I had done on it and all the people I had spoken to about it said it was all tightly secured! Well we managed to get into every single building with ease and inside was a real surprise. Just shows you never know until you look for yourself!

From the outside it is impressive and same can be said for the inside. Access into the site was a little bold to say the least and I almost severed and left my privates on a spiked fence, other than that it was a lovely peaceful explore with no signs of jobs-worth security or nosey officials. We were in the site for about three or four hours and could have stayed longer. Some of the buildings are really unsafe and rotting away and some areas are good condition, like the kitchen area still complete with all the ovens and cookers. The “secure” cells for the really mad people were a highlight for me, as well as the perfect sounding grand piano left there, which we had to play some tunes on! The whole place from start to finish really did feel like a creepy mental house and I bet it was an awful place to have been at the time.

As we were leaving we lifted up a massive manhole cover and it was a warren of glazed brick service tunnels, unfortunately they have been recently blocked up half way down. Very impressive however did not take my camera due to the awkward climb. I did however do some research on these tunnels and found out that apparently they lead to the train station, as well as being used to transport the male patients across the grounds of the hospital without making contact with the female patients. I one day hope to get to the other side of the blocked wall and to the train station.