St. Crispins Asylum (County Asylum) - St. Crispins - Northampton

St Crispins was a large mental hospital on the outskirts of Duston in Northamptonshire, England. It was established in the 1876 as the Berrywood Asylum. It closed in 1995 and its grounds are being developed into a new mental hospital, set to open in May 2010.

Following the closure of St. Crispin's Asylum, the main building was left abandoned for a number of years and became neglected and prone to vandalism and arson which destroyed the roof of the recreation hall. Some buildings within the grounds, notably those connected with the Princess Marina Hospital remained in use, as well as the staff social club and bowling green. The former chapel is now in use for religious purposes by the Greek orthodox religion and dedicated to St. Neophytos. The chapel and former isolation hospital are both listed at Grade II and to be incorported within the new development, The bell tower will remain and be put under restoration.

The main building itself is currently undergoing conversion to private residential use with the retention of the original male and female blocks, tower, administration block, superintendent's house and children's block being retained. Elsewhere within the grounds, the former stables and nurse's home have also been refurbished. Other later buildings and service areas have been cleared. The Pendered Centre, formerly the admission hospital, continues in use for local mental health services although the neighbouring convalescent villas have been demolished. New housing was developed on the site of staff housing and football grounds to the east of the admission hospital around 1993, although a group of early houses survive on the main road. Further housing has since been developed on open land to the west as well.

By 1884, and completed 1887 further extensions took place, creating a new block for idiot and imbecile children adjacent to the female wing, blocks for epileptics on either side, a resevoir and fire station, stable yard and an isolation hospital with a distinctive pyramidal roofline. A stone chapel and mortuary were also constructed.

With the onset of World War I, the institution accommodated some of the inmates evacuated from the Norfolk County Asylum, until 1916, when Berrywood was also turned over to war use and its own population distributed across East Anglia and the East Midlands. As the Duston War Hospital, the asylum was put to extensive use for military cases being treated and recovering from injury. Many images survive of the hospital during this period of use. However, peace brought a return of the building and a return of its patient population. A change of name from asylum to mental hospital was to mark another period of growth and during the 1930's, extensions took place. These took the form of a new nurse's home, refurbishment of some of the staff residences, a new admission hospital (now the Pendered Centre) with two villas for male and female convalescent patients, sited on an adjacent site, away from the main complex.

Following World War II, ownership of the site passed to the National Health Service and the hospital, then known as St. Crispin, reached it's highest number of occupants. Two new villas for female working patients (Grafton and Eden Lodges)were constructed south of the female wing in 1954. The grounds to the south of the hospital farm was developed for mental handicap services during the early 1970's and was to be one of the last major long stay facilities of it's kind in England. Named the Princess Marina hospital, it provided a home for a number of Northampton patients previously resident at Bromham Hospital in Bedfordshire and although adjacent to St.Crispin, it was located within the Upton parish and access from the south. Kent Road, a drive which had pre-existed the new hospital was retained and adapted as the main access route, with an entrance off road to the south. Some facilities, particularly the laundry, were centralized and expanded at St. Crispin. A social club for staff was sited close to a remodeled entrance onto Berrywood Road.

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