warley hospital | the essex county lunatic asylum
Last update: 23|08|10
Warley Hospital



ward #6 first floor
general orientation

General view of ward #6 first floor



Ward #6 from the 1853 plan (coloured)






ward #6 first floor
detailed pictures

The design of the wards was largely uniform across the asylum with little differentiation for class of patient. As was typical for a building of the corridor planform, a ward comprised of a single central gallery with a single bay window along one side (these spaces doubled up as dormitories on first floors), day and dining rooms appended to either end, with single rooms, stores and attendant rooms along the opposing side.

Lavatories and bathrooms were also associated with each ward but these were not housed in separate sanitation towers (as this was a later construct and didn’t start appearing until the 1860s and 1870s).

A contemporary description further underlined the identical design of the wards: "Each gallery contains two rooms for attendants, so arranged as to overlook the dormitories, a store room, scullery, bath room and lavatory, all well fitted, and a supply of hot and cold water is available at all times, night and day. Convenient to the wards are two large rooms, one on the male, the other on the female side, used as dining rooms for the attendants, also a large amusement room."

One notable feature of the interiors of some of the wards was the curious curved ceilings with "honeycombed" textures. This was Victorian fire-proofing (not sound dampening as some have guessed): it wasn’t a popular feature (probably being expensive and time consuming to build) and was only used at the Second Middlesex County Asylum (Colney Hatch, 1851), the First Essex County Asylum (Warley,1853) and the First Lincoln County Asylum (St John’s, 1852).



interior: view east
The hospital wards are given identifying numbers. This is simply the order in which I encountered them and doesn’t correspond to any number or name they may have been given during the working life of the hospital.

Ward #6 was the east-west orientated block as the southern end of the hospital.

The day room of the ward was one of the most atmospheric and decayed in the whole hospital. Most of the paint from the curved ceilings had peeled away and the ward hadn’t been swept for many years.




interior: view south
Huge flakes of paint lay on the floor of the small bay window of the day room.




interior: view east
All of the doors to the individual rooms were wide open, and had been modernised with a covering of thin plywood. The ward had also been divided into two with a nurses’ station built against the new wall.




interior: view north
The paint was peeling heavily from the walls further down the ward. In one side room, various notice boards were all that remained from its former use.




interior: view north (detail)
A final message from a patient.




    Return to: Warley Hospital