netherne


Located within two miles of Cane Hill, Netherne is another old style mental hospital. A larger, more sprawling site, and also disused, it is currently being knocked down. This is as part of a housing development, "Netherne on the Hill". We are unsure to what they are doing to the hospital, but already large sections of the front of the hospital have been entirely demolished (unfortunately this means the boiler house etc...). The tower will remain for a while longer because it has cellphone transmitters on it, and no replacement masts have been erected. Many of the outbuildings have already been knocked down, but the main building still stands, possibly for conversion into housing (would you want to live in a mental hospital???).The architechture of the more decorative buildings is gothic (take a look at the tower), but most of the wards are of very simple design.

On the 17th of May, 1999, we decided that we would have to go and check the site out. The site has had a guard for many years, has new style connected phone boxes within the grounds, as well as electrical power. This has detered us from going up there before now, but the pressure of time has prompted us to go up there. We drove around the surrounding roads, looking for a back enterance. The quickest way seemed to be to park in Farthing Downs and walk to the back of the hospital. This was the chosen route, as we did not want to have the car when we went to look. Driving back bast the hospital, we followed some of the smaller roads near to it, and found small outbuildings such as "South View" and a couple of half demolished wards. The fact that they are unfenced means that they have been heavily vandalised, and are of little exploration interest. One of the gates to the hospital was wide open, and although there were cars, builders and a site office, we drove in and down a side road to look at some of the wards. They are not connected to the main hosipital, but are almost completly intact, apart from natural wear and tear, a very strong contrast to the badly vandalised Cane Hill. We decided that this was enough for one day.

Next day, the 18th of May, we went for the big chan. Putting on dark clothes, we drove up to the Downs to park. A walk across a field (respect due to the farmer, we walked on the tracks), then up a hill and through some woods, brought us to the rear of the hospital. It would have been possible to park here, but the car would have been an unnecessary burden. Quickly going under a broken barbed wire fence, we were now in the grounds of the hospital. My knowledge of Netherne is little compared to Cane Hill, so this is only a small amount of what is there.

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