Rainhill Hospital

Rainhill Hospital was a very large psychiatric hospital complex that was located in Rainhill, formerly Lancashire but now Merseyside, England.HistoryRainhill Hospital was opened on the 1st January 1851, as the third County Lunatic Asylum in Lancashire.The hospital was known by a variety of names throughout its existence, initially as the Lancashire County Lunatic Asylum from 1851 to 1861, the County Lunatic Asylum, Rainhill from 1861 to 1923, the County Mental Hospital, Rainhill from 1923 to 1948, and later Rainhill Mental Hospital and finally Rainhill Hospital until its closure in 1991.Rainhill Hospital was once the largest and busiest psychiatric hospital not only in the county of Lancashire, but the whole of the United Kingdom and Europe itself when in 1936 at the peak of its activity there was approximately 3,000 inpatients resident at the hospital.Hospital BuildingsThe hospital complex was divided into two sites by Rainhill Road, a main traffic thoroughfare that still exists to the present day. The divisions were as follows: The Sherdley Division to the south-east of the road, the location of the original hospital buildings and wards that were accessed via the main entrance driveway on Elton Head Road, and The Avon Division (also known as the annexe) to the north-west of the road. The buildings at the Sherdley Division were designed by Harvey Lonsdale Elmes. Initially being the original and only main buildings at Rainhill Hospital, when closures were made to asylums in Liverpool; tremendous pressure was placed on the facilities. Additional wings were added to the Sherdley site with further extensions later constructed on a piecemeal basis. However, it was not until 1877 when plans were put in place by the local superintendent to double the size of the asylum to increase its capacity that a new annexe was constructed to the north-west of Rainhill Road. The annexe would later become known as the Avon Division. The Avon Division was noted for its linear design and long corridor, with some former staff claiming that it was the longest hospital corridor in Europe at the time.