The North Wales Hospital (locally known as Denbigh Mental) was a hospital for people with psychiatric illnesses located in Denbigh, Denbighshire, Wales.
Designed by architect Carl Johan Aru to originally accommodate between 60 and 200 patients, the building dates back to 1848, and originally had its own farm and gasworks. Planned for closure by Enoch Powell from the 1960s, it was closed in sections from 1991 to 2002.
Now derelict, on October 31, 2008, Living TV's Most Haunted did a live series, The Village of the Damned on location in the North Wales Hospital which spanned over the course of a week. The producers of the show were criticized by residents of Denbigh for slurs against the town and the hospital.
On 22 November 2008, during work to renovate the building site and convert it to apartments and residential properties, the building caught fire; it was later confirmed that the main hall of the hospital was destroyed. Arson is suspected.
Currently on the buildings at risk register, planning permission has currently lapsed, while Denbighshire council are planning urgent repairs and to bill the current owners/developers.
Famous quotes containing the words north, wales and/or hospital:
“We have heard all of our lives how, after the Civil War was over, the South went back to straighten itself out and make a living again. It was for many years a voiceless part of the government. The balance of power moved away from it—to the north and the east. The problems of the north and the east became the big problem of the country and nobody paid much attention to the economic unbalance the South had left as its only choice.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“I just come and talk to the plants, really—very important to talk to them, they respond I find.”
—Charles, Prince Of Wales (b. 1948)
“Radio put technology into storytelling and made it sick. TV killed it. Then you were locked into somebody else’s sighting of that story. You no longer had the benefit of making that picture for yourself, using your imagination. Storytelling brings back that humanness that we have lost with TV. You talk to children and they don’t hear you. They are television addicts. Mamas bring them home from the hospital and drag them up in front of the set and the great stare-out begins.”
—Jackie Torrence (b. 1944)