Littlemore Hospital

The hospital, which was designed by Robert Clarke using a Corridor Plan layout, opened as the Oxford County Pauper Lunatic Asylum in August 1846.[1][2] The ward spurs were extended to a design by Henry Jones Underwood in 1847.[1]

Littlemore railway station was opened, giving improved access to the hospital, in 1864, and two additional pavilion blocks connected by a recreation hall were completed to a design by Edwin Dolby and Henry Tollit in 1902.[1][3] During the last few months of the First World War the hospital served as the Ashurst Military hospital and it was then renamed Littlemore Hospital in 1922.[1]

After some of the pavilions saw service with the Emergency Hospital Service during the Second World War, the whole facility joined the National Health Service in 1948.[1] Dr Bertram Mandelbrote, who carried out pioneering work on creating therapeutic communities, became superintendent at the hospital in 1959.[4]

After the introduction of Care in the Community in the early 1980s, the hospital went into a period of decline and closed in 1998.[1][5] The main hospital building was converted into apartments as St. George's Park.[1] Some of the rear blocks were acquired by Yamanouchi (now Astellas Pharma) for use as a research facility [6] but then sold on, in 2008, to the SAE Institute for use as a training establishment.[7] Meanwhile, a modern mental health facility known as the Littlemore Mental Health Centre,[8] which includes the Ashurst Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and Phoenix Ward (Adult Male in-patient), have been established on the opposite side of Sandford Road.[9]