History
Denbigh Mental Asylum was built between 1844-1848 and served as a home for paupers who was welsh speaking people and was deemed to have a mental health condition. It was closed in 1995 due to legislation.
Orginally it was only built to accommodate 200 patients but it was expanded in 1899 to prevent overcrowding and then eventually accommodated up to 1500 patients.
Patients
Patients would have varied from the clinically insane to people who had learning disabilities, depression, dementia, post natal depression, epilepsy, alcoholism, women who had children out of wedlock or had committed adultery!
Its safe to say that some of the patients shouldn’t have been placed here at all and what is classed as being clinically insane back then wouldn’t be today, another good example of this was men was often placed in asylums for masturbating as such a act was deemed as an act of insanity!
Husbands who wanted rid of wives, or families who stood to make money by getting a relative out of the way, were known for plotting to have them hauled off to this asylum and It took only two doctors’ signatures to get rid of an inconvenient wife or rich eccentric relative.
Various treatment methods commonly associated with hospitals of this nature would have been Malarial treatment, Insulin Shock treatment, Sulphur based drugs, Cardiazol, Electro-Convulsive Treatment (ECT) and Pre-frontal leucotomy operations aka Lobotomy operations. Highly toxic mercury was used on those deemed hysterical and a chemical cosh of antimony, now used in fire retardants, kept patients feeling sick so they were less prone to violence.
After the Victorian era pre-frontal lobotomies that saw part of the brain purposely damaged by severing nerves, were said to be widespread at the hospital.
Have you ever been in Denbigh Asylum’s Morgue and wondered why there is only 4 trays for such a huge building? Well the rumour is that this was where experiments was conducted on the dead and they would store them in 4’s at a time to conduct them. Most who would have died would have been sent off else where but some patients did remain here.
Some of the patients who died here would have been buried within the Denbigh asylum grounds specifically in the church yard. As you stand there today, you would never know, there is no gravestones to remind us of those who died here, but looking in forums, people who have looked for family that died here have struggled to find any record of their family member being buried outside of the grounds at nearby cemeteries but was told some patients was buried within the grounds at death.
Its safe to say that life here would have been hard, for the ill and the patients who wasn’t!
Here are some pictures how patients would have been treated, even though these wasn’t taken at Denbigh Asylum, it sure gives you a insight to how life was………
A patient sits in a restraint chair
Nurses hold down a patient receiving electroshock treatment
A surgeon uses a brace and bit to drill into a patient’s skull before performing a lobotomy
Ghosts
There is no specific names as to such who or what actually haunts Denbigh Asylum, but there is areas which people tend to experience more. The Church and Morgue are said to be the most active places.
Some of the reports here are hearing screaming, laugher, having things thrown at them and even being scratched.
This Picture was taken at Denbigh Asylum by Kyla Peberdy, a paranormal explorer, it was published in the Dailymail and Kyla reported to them hearing bangs, talking and experiencing chills. She stated that she didn’t realise she had caught something strange on camera until looking back through the pictures.
She reported that she had heard rumour that a caretaker is alleged to haunt this area.
The full article can be seen here http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5165789/Student-snaps-image-ghost-caretaker-abandoned-asylum.html
On our visit here we did a ITC session here and managed to capture quite a funny response when we was calling out
Carl Guntrip, investigator for paranormal hauntings, visited the location a few weeks before. He went into the tunnels beneath and did a spirit box session and captured what seems to be replies to calling out.
To have a look at the building have a look at these pictures by spiritus Sanctus who joined up with us for this explore….
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