I felt a little sorry for William C Clifford Smith. Whilst he was involved with tin shacks at
Manor Hospital,
or designing the small asylum of St. Ebba’s, GT Hine was building huge echelon asylums literally next
door.
But do not despair! He was given his chance with the last of the Epsom Cluster.
Smith designed West Park, the next stage of asylum design, stepping over Hine’s
compact echelon pattern,
and building the first ‘colony’ asylum in England - the colony idea being imported from the US.
A plan of the asylum looks much like the others at Epsom, but each ward is designed to be more self sufficient,
the hospital being a colony of small communities rather than a set of wards.
The main hospital has now closed, and the ancillary buildings are becoming run down and dilapidated - in
that respect, West Park is a little like Severalls.
So, the next tour will be of West Park, where we receed the site, and managed to get into a couple of wards.
It looks like it’ll be the only part of the Epsom Cluster to be full documented here.
Left: The Admin Building at Horton. I believe this is going to be saved and converted to housing.
