Knowle Hospital

Knowle Hospital, was a psychiatric hospital in the village of Knowle near the town of Fareham in Hampshire, southern England, which opened in 1852 and closed in 1996.

Knowle Hospital
Former main asylum building, now apartments
Shown in Hampshire
Geography
LocationKnowle, Hampshire, England, United Kingdom
Coordinates50.881570°N 1.204048°W / 50.881570; -1.204048
Organisation
Care systemNHS
TypeSpecialist
Affiliated universityUniversity of Southampton
Services
Emergency departmentNo Accident & Emergency
SpecialityPsychiatric
HelipadNo
History
Opened1852
Closed1996
Links
ListsHospitals in England

History

A committee of nine JPs were appointed at the Easter Quarter Sessions in 1846 to superintend the erecting or providing of a lunatic asylum for Hampshire. They selected Knowle Farm as the most suitable available site, comprising 108 acres (0.43706 km2).[1] The asylum was designed by James Harris and the new facility, known as the Hampshire County Lunatic Asylum, opened in December 1852.[2]

For about a year, in 1857/58, one of the gardeners at Knowle, Henry Coe, engaged in a personal correspondence with Charles Darwin concerning horticultural matters, especially about the cultivation of kidney beans. As a result of this correspondence, Darwin became involved in a minor dispute about the legality of a patient's detention at Knowle. Following his recovery and discharge, the patient wrote to Darwin, thanking him for taking a personal interest.[3] A chapel was built on the site in 1875.[4][5]

The asylum was renamed Knowle Mental Hospital in 1923 and then became Knowle Hospital in 1948.[6]

In the late 1960s, Dr Ronald A. Sandison, a psychiatrist and psychotherapist who pioneered the clinical use of LSD in psychiatry, worked at Knowle Hospital.[7]

During the 1970s, plans were drawn up to close the large county mental asylums and in 1979 mental health services for Southampton and south west Hampshire were moved to a newly established Department of Psychiatry at Royal South Hants Hospital in Southampton.[8]

New and old buildings forming Knowle Village

Part of the hospital site was home to the Hampshire Ambulance Service Knowle Training School in the 1980s.[9]

After services transferred to Gosport War Memorial Hospital and to other local facilities, Knowle Hospital closed in 1996.[10] The site was subsequently redeveloped for residential use as Knowle Village.[11]

Transport

Knowle Halt, a small railway station on the Eastleigh–Fareham line, served the asylum from 1907. The station (which also served the village of Funtley) was closed in 1964. Trains from the Meon Valley Railway, a cross-country railway in Hampshire, also served Knowle Halt.[12]

See also

References
  1. "94048 - Knowle Hospital, Fareham (Alt Ref No 48M94), Hampshire County Record Office". Retrieved 30 July 2016.
  2. "Burt, Susan Margaret (2003). "Fit Objects for an Asylum" The Hampshire County Lunatic Asylum and its Patients, 1852-1899, University of Southampton, Faculty of Social Sciences Department of Sociology and Social Policy, PhD Thesis" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 August 2016. Retrieved 30 July 2016.
  3. King, Malcolm (1 April 2015). "Charles Darwin and the Asylum Letters". American Journal of Psychiatry. Psychiatry on line. 172 (4): 321–2. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2014.14101260. PMID 25827031.
  4. "Knowle Hospital Chapel - List Entry Summary, Historic England". Retrieved 30 July 2016.
  5. "Knowle - History, County Asylums". Retrieved 30 July 2016.
  6. "Knowle Hospital". National Archives. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  7. "Obituary: Ronald Sandison". The Telegraph. 5 August 2010. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  8. "KA brief history of the RSH" (PDF). Retrieved 30 July 2016.
  9. "Gallery - Knowle Training School". Retrieved 30 July 2016.
  10. "Mental hospitals in England". Retrieved 4 October 2018.
  11. "Report of the County Planning Officer and the County Surveyor, Hampshire County Council Roads and Development Sub-Committee". Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 27 July 2007.
  12. "Subterranea Britannica Disused Stations Site Record". Retrieved 27 July 2007.

Further reading
  • Burt, Susan (2004), Fit Objects for an Asylum: the Hampshire County Lunatic Asylum and its patients, 1852-1899 (Ph.D. thesis). Southampton: University of Southampton. OCLC 59193333
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