Bedlam

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

A friend of mine up and until recently visited the Bedlam Hospital in London as an outpatient for her anxiety. Mostly modern, same as any hospital. However, some wings harkened back to the days when it was an insane asylum - especially the shower block. She could have sworn they were haunted

It wouldn't surprise me. The things those walls had seen were SHOCKING. They dated back to times before psychiatric medications when treatments were brutal and people could pay to see the "lunatics". One of the most horrific "treatments" was electro-convulsive therapy before it was civilised. Patients were strapped to chairs, no anaesthetic, no paralytic, mouth guard to stop you breaking your teeth... a far cry from how it is now.

Terrifying. Now those wings are being demolished and the demons exorcised, but still... not somewhere I would care to visit.

 

[RamblingMad]

There is a British TV show called Bedlam about a haunting. The first season is great. The second season goes off the rails.

 

[Jangles]

A friend of mine up and until recently visited the Bedlam Hospital in London as an outpatient for her anxiety. Mostly modern, same as any hospital. However, some wings harkened back to the days when it was an insane asylum - especially the shower block. She could have sworn they were haunted

It wouldn't surprise me. The things those walls had seen were SHOCKING. They dated back to times before psychiatric medications when treatments were brutal and people could pay to see the "lunatics". One of the most horrific "treatments" was electro-convulsive therapy before it was civilised. Patients were strapped to chairs, no anaesthetic, no paralytic, mouth guard to stop you breaking your teeth... a far cry from how it is now.

Terrifying. Now those wings are being demolished and the demons exorcised, but still... not somewhere I would care to visit.

Bedlam is a nickname and it’s actually called Bethlam Royal Hospital. Sadly ECT is still performed in the U.K. It is barbaric. Many former asylums have an odd feel about them.

 

[NotUrsula]

A friend of mine up and until recently visited the Bedlam Hospital in London as an outpatient for her anxiety. Mostly modern, same as any hospital. However, some wings harkened back to the days when it was an insane asylum - especially the shower block. She could have sworn they were haunted

It wouldn't surprise me. The things those walls had seen were SHOCKING. They dated back to times before psychiatric medications when treatments were brutal and people could pay to see the "lunatics". One of the most horrific "treatments" was electro-convulsive therapy before it was civilised. Patients were strapped to chairs, no anaesthetic, no paralytic, mouth guard to stop you breaking your teeth... a far cry from how it is now.

Terrifying. Now those wings are being demolished and the demons exorcised, but still... not somewhere I would care to visit.

If you've ever been to the Imperial War Museum on a school outing (or on your own), then you probably already have visited.

While ECT was and is conducted in the present facility (thankfully, the technique is considerably less brutal now, and conducted under anaesthesia), the days when Bedlam sold tickets never had any connection to those particular walls. The current facility was opened in 1930. No tickets were ever sold there; that was at the original building in Moorfields, which was demolished in 1815. (The selling of spectator tickets went away even before the original building; it was made illegal in 1770.)

These days, people who like military history usually spend more time with the real "haunted" Bedlam walls than your friend probably did: the second and longest-used version of the hospital, active from 1815 to 1929, was where the worst patient abuses occured. It's in Southwark near Elephant and Castle, and has been the home of the main galleries of the Imperial War Museum since 1936. (And if you have never visited the Imperial War Museum, you really should go. I'm a bit of a connoisseur of history museums, and the IWM is one of the best I've ever experienced.) Very little remains there of the building's original use.

 

[leebee]

There was a State Hospital (psychiatric facility) near where I grew up, built in 1874 and opened in 1878 (known as the Danvers Lunatic Asylum among other "attractive" names). When I was in high school one of my teachers was in the National Guard (I think... it's been a few years) and they did weekend work at the hospital. He said the place was just as horrifying as you'd think. About 20 years ago it was closed and sold to a condo developer. The location is scenic and the apartment supposedly beautiful, but I just cannot imagine living there.

 

[chickapin parterre]

if tiger woods wins

Definition of bedlam​

1: a place, scene, or state of uproar and confusionThere was bedlam on the fairways

 

[PaulaSB12]

It was a place to go on guided tours to make the mentally. It also was way too easy to get rid of problem relatives there