Report - St Marys Hospital / Gateshead Borough Asylum March 2013 - Demolition Update

[emotive69]

Gateshead Borough Asylum was a 500 capacity Lunatic Asylum in 1910 and was the last design of Thomas Hine, it was later to be a wartime hospital and then a general hospital before its closure in 1995 and it now earmarked as yet another new 'lego' development for the masses with maybe if we are lucky a little history retained.

Got some spare time to fill in between work so decided on a solo urbex mission to crack St Georges in Morpeth. My last attempt their ended in us being nailed in by the slightly strange and short sighted security. This time on my own managed to get round the whole complex unnoticed however it is done up like a kipper and could not for the life of me find any way in. On the way out met a guy in the grounds who happened to know the way in but by then it was starting to draw in dark and due to the size of this place i want a few hours once in to do it so its going to be round 3 for St G's.

Since it was just down the road decided to take a quick look at St Marys Asylum at Stannington as rumors have it its turned into a housing estate. Well from the initial approach it looks to be so , but the shady truth of whats going on there is hidden behind the dodgy facade of 'Brookside' Housing at the front.

I really do despare when these developers take over sites promising to keep the character and charm and retain features of these glorious listed buildings and then do this to them ! its a crime.

I have visited St Marys 4 times and on each occassion it was wonderful to see the old girl and from the morgue to the dentists chair water tower and clock it was amazing photography , today she is naked and devoid of most any character at all and a sad testament to our lack of respect for the past. RIP St Marys.


The new entrance , gone is the lovely old gate house replaced by ermmmm .... this

Piles of mud everywhere skips and bags of rubble

The beautiful character filled corridors and rooms now have no floors ceilings windows or doors

The once amazing ballroom and stage were the most dissapointing thing to see

There was actually still some activity in the water tower area and give its absolutely full of pigeon crap i decided my previous photos would suffice there anyways , there also appears to be a dog present at the old admin building which is now fenced off.

The final shot of this tree which has also seen better days says it all for me

Even more determined to get to see Georges now before the same happens...

 

[floonds]

RIP St Mary's... final demo taking place this week.

St George's demolition begins this week also.

 

[hamtagger]

Thanks for the update

Amazing how that main hall roof look almost immaculate compared to the rest of the place

 

[ASOM]

I thought they were keeping most of what now remained, having gone to the effort of all that pre-stripping? Guess not. St George's is actually taking place - can I ask where you heard/saw that? Fortunately managed to finally get there on 4th attempt earlier this year, but still a shame - pretty much just leaves Severalls now then for intact derelict asylums.

 

[floonds]

I thought they were keeping most of what now remained, having gone to the effort of all that pre-stripping? Guess not. St George's is actually taking place - can I ask where you heard/saw that? Fortunately managed to finally get there on 4th attempt earlier this year, but still a shame - pretty much just leaves Severalls now then for intact derelict asylums.

Yeah so did I, they were left stripped and I assumed this would be to convert into apartments etc. Unfortunately not though, even the water tower is going. Planning permission was approved in July to demolish the entire site as only the gardens are listed and there are other examples of this building style elsewhere in the country. The admin block (now St Mary's Inn) will be the only main hospital building remaining. (Again no idea why they went to the effort of stripping).

You can view the planning documents here - there's also a heritage document in there which was commissioned by Bellway - it's a pretty interesting read and covers the history of the place and also the justifications for knocking it down.

In terms of St George's, demolition began this week in three phases. Phase three covers all the main hospital buildings except the admin block and water tower which are to be retained. Plans can be viewed here and last week's news article here

If you want to see St George's before it's confined to history, go now. It's easier to get into no as well as some of the fences are down for construction vehicles

Here's probably the final pic of St Mary's taken last night.... This is the last ward (East) remaining and is being demolished this afternoon ready to be replaced with ugly pre-fab mass housing

 

[tumbles]

I'm sure the original plan wasn't to demo them all.. usual tactic of letting them rot to fuck and then claim they are unsavable. However St Mary's most have ranked amongst the least trashed asylum out there, it was in a very,very, good condition given it closed so early (mid 90s)

Not so suprised the water tower is going.. it was pretty screwed inside and pretty sure it was subsiding in places. Another hine bites the dust.. I guess only Rauceby is left in a derelict state?

Crazy that Severalls has seemingly outlived the rest.. it must of had at least 4-5 demolition plans over the years.

 

[ASOM]

I'm sure the original plan wasn't to demo them all.. usual tactic of letting them rot to fuck and then claim they are unsavable. However St Mary's most have ranked amongst the least trashed asylum out there, it was in a very,very, good condition given it closed so early (mid 90s)

Not so suprised the water tower is going.. it was pretty screwed inside and pretty sure it was subsiding in places. Another hine bites the dust.. I guess only Rauceby is left in a derelict state?

Crazy that Severalls has seemingly outlived the rest.. it must of had at least 4-5 demolition plans over the years.

Seems to be the way. Well there's about as much left of The Towers (Hine part) as Rauceby now, although I hesitate to say "at least they're keeping what's left" after seeing this!

Cheers for the useful links btw Floonds

 

[Krypton]

Have they got rid of the Chapel? I'm pretty sure it was next to the water tower and it was always sealed up tight as if they were going to retain it.

 

[Ferox]

Nice report that mate, thanks for the update

 

[Bolts]

Nice report, sad to see another one of these go

 

[floonds]

Have they got rid of the Chapel? I'm pretty sure it was next to the water tower and it was always sealed up tight as if they were going to retain it.

No, chapel is lying untouched in the woods...

 

[Krypton]

Oh, good. I was thinking of the hall. Guessing that's gone now.

 

[floonds]

Oh, good. I was thinking of the hall. Guessing that's gone now.

This was it last night, it's gone now!

 

[Krypton]

Bugger, I'm disappointed they aren't incorporating any thing else into the new estate. I thought they were gonna make some nice apartments out of the wards.