Morbid Monday: Welsh Edition
In honor of one of the Atlas Team’s imminent departure for parts Welsh in a few days, today’s Morbid Monday dredged up all sorts of gruesome Wales-related goodies. Between the black death & child labor in the mines, we found the story of the truly creepy North Wales Hospital, aka. Denbigh Asylum, once home to electro-convulsive therapy & non-voluntary lobotomy treatments, now in a state of picturesque doomy decay.
Photo by LulaTaHula
The asylum was built between 1844-1848, at the height of the Victorian lunatic asylum building craze spurred by the 1808 Asylum Act which proposed moving the mentally infirm into care facilities rather than workhouses. The Denbigh asylum was specifically constructed to serve Welsh-speaking lunatics locally so that they could be attended to in their native tongue rather than being sent to English asylums.
It closed relatively recently and in 2008 the empty building was featured in a not-loved-by-locals episode of “Most Haunted” (“sensationalist rubbish”), and then later that year it was consumed in flames and partially gutted. Now the historic building is facing an uncertain future, and sits on the buildings at risk register.
* Built in the north of Wales, Denbigh also produced the famed journalist/explorer/historic monument defacerand, later, inspiration for Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Henry Morton Stanley and is home to the more ruined, slightly less creepy Denbigh Castle*
According to Wikipedians, the castle features “a heavily defended passageway that had murder-holes, portcullises in series, two wooden doors, and enfilading arrowslits.” We at Atlas Obscura stand by any attraction that features a good murder-hole. Wikipedia **See also: Dead Explorer Fights Knife Crime
Doomy Welsh Link Roundup after the Jump
Denbigh link fest:
History of the asylum, on the Time Chamber & Timeline
Artwork inspired by Denbigh Asylum by Rachel Gadsden
More links from today’s doomy Welsh explorations:
“We see death coming into our midst like black smoke” The black death in Wales, 1349
”..I was frightened for someone had stolen my bread and cheese. I think it was the rats”
A handy guide to the Megolithic tombs of Wales… and more ancient tombs in Wales, this time with less giant rocks, more mounds
Discovery of the day: the terrific web site for the National Museum of Wales
Join us each Monday on Twitter and follow our #morbidmonday hashtag, for new odd and macabre themes each week: Atlas Obscura on Twitter
Previously:
Morbid Monday: Clemente Susini and his Anatomical Venus
Morbid Monday: Mad Monks & Bullet-Proof Corsets
Morbid Monday: The Unhappy Prince and the Dead Baroness
Morbid Monday: Space Dogs, Traveling Cats, and a Sad Story About Elephants
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