St. Marys Asylum
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St. Marys Asylum was founded in 1910 and opened in 1914. During its time its also been known as Gateshead / Stannington Mental Hospital, Gateshead / Stannington War Hospital, Gateshead Borough Asylum and St. Marys Asylum.
It was designed by George Thomas Hine FRIBA, Consultant architect to the Commissioners in Lunacy, with H.Carter-Pegg and was designed on the Compact arrow plan with female blocks to the west. This was the last Asylum Hines built.
Almost as soon as the asylum opened it was requisitioned by the military for the duartion of World War I.
After the war the asylum was returned to Gateshead who addded a nurse's home in 1927-8 and modified the isolation hospital to form a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients.
The asylum was again requisitioned in WWII and development of a hutted Emergency medical services hospital to the north of the admission unit was added.
In 1948 when the National Health Service was formed the name was changed to St. Marys, named after the Stannington parish church.
The hutted emergency hospital was converted to house mental defectives.
Limited development under the NHS consisted of a new staff training school and a number of prefabricated units providing social and occupational therapy facilities.
Resettlement and closure led to the retraction of wards and services back into the main building, with the areas to the north closing first. Despite the hospitals remote location, and considerable distance from it's catchment area, it remained open as late as 1995 when most surviving facilities were relocated to Bensham General Hospital.
With the exception of the staff and steward's residence which are privately occupied.
Considering the majority of the site has laid derelict since 1995 it is in remarkable condition, there is hardly any vandalism to the site too which is quite rare, but given its remote location this could be why?.
In terms of equipment and the like, pretty much was taken out when the asylum closed but it does still hold some interesting little finds, like the rack dryers still mounted into the walls in the laundry section and the hair dressing salon in the main building.
St. Marys has a nice atmosphere to it and is extremeley photogenic in parts, definatley one of the finer asylums left in the country.
