Report - Whitchurch Hospital (Cardiff City Asylum), Cardiff - 2016-2018

[NickUk]

Whitchurch is a belter! Good work man!

Need to get back and get round the bits i missed last time to be honest.

 

[Exploring with Andy]

Outstandingly well covered.

 

[catbalou]

Fantastic report, you can see a hell of a lot of effort has gone into this, beautiful place.

Whats with that book? Is that like the world's longest title ever? not exactly "catchy" :-)

 

[clebby]

A couple of new bits from a recent revisit...

Woodworking

A nice little room to the north of the site, adjacent to the engineering department. Most asylums had one of these, but it's rare to see one so intact:

And next door, another workshop full of associated tat:

Ward West 5A

This is the upstairs of the festering 'derp' ward that I featured in my original report. It had been locked up on all of my other visits, but seeing as the downstairs was a little ruinous for my taste (in part due to the weed farm that one of the nurses had set up inside - true story) I was pleased to discover that it's been opened up in recent weeks

Fortunately it's in much better condition than the lower floor, and with a few more surviving features to boot:

Nice old partition in the dayroom

Note the amazing double skinned bath

Occupational Therapy

This is located in a dreary 70s building to the right of admin. Unsurprisingly, this has been largely overlooked in favour of exploring the rest of the hospital, however it's actually remarkably dated inside and features a full size gymnasium - certainly not something I've seen at an asylum before!

I was certain that I'd seen the lot after my most recent visit, yet only a few hours later @tumbles sent me a picture of the epic backup generator room - it would seem the place is still harbouring epic! Tumbles may even share some photos if you're lucky ​

 

[pob]

Been exploring this place from a while back. Becoming a tourist trail. And getting trashed. Shame still seeing new things each time.

 

[ultravox]

Wow! Amazing report and well documented!

 

[Rosary_Boy]

Wards

At first glance, the wards themselves appear fairly modern - not as chopped about as those down the road at Cefn, but still nothing too special. Loads of stuff left, it's just all modern and boring!

That said, some wards were surprisingly dated if you were willing to look beyond the magnolia:

Ward West 5

One notable exception is Ward West 5, which inexplicably closed in the early 1980s whilst the rest of the hospital was refurbished:

Amazing bathrooms:

Pathology

Another part of the hospital which had been closed for a long time was the Pathology Lab. This was really great - a lot of modern tat had been dumped in one of the rooms, but underneath it was a real time capsule.

Beautiful cabinetry

Pharmacy

The pharmacy wasn't bad either, and believe it or not those cabinets were in use for dispensing right up until 2016!

Note the security bars covering every possible access point to the pharmacy:

Continued below.​

love these photos !

 

[NursePayne]

Oh my these are the best photos I’ve seen of it what a GEM