Having quickly thrown up the Manor Hospital, the LCC were looking for quick ways to erect new asylums.
The easiest, having to get all the plans for an asylum past the Commissioners of Lunacy and the Home Secretary, would be to build a replica of an existing asylum.
GT Hine was the principle asylum architect of the time. He had already built the biggest asylum to date at
Claybury for the LCC, utilising his new compact echelon plan, which was to become the basis for asylum
design for the next twenty years.
Having built a slightly modified version of Claybury at Bexley,GT Hine
built an exact replica at Horton. Except this one was on the cheap - no expense was spared. The hospital quickly became known as the
cheapest asylum in the country.
Completed in 1902, it stood for 100 years. And it’s now being demolished.
Left: The Main Hall, spied through the wire fence. The water tower can be seen on the left. The demolition
teams are just starting to remove the roof.
