Three Counties Hospital
To the east of Arlesey stands an impressive
Gothic style Mansion. This is Fairfield Hall.
Now the centre piece to the Fairfield Park
development it was originally built in the
19th century as a purpose built Asylum for
the mentally unstable. So why was ‘Three
Counties Asylum’ built? We have to go back
to the early 19th century to understand
why all the large county asylums exist and
why the Three Counties became such a
huge, self-contained site.
Bedlam . . . You must have heard the saying “it was bedlam at work today”
or “the kids have drove me mad running about and screaming, it was
bedlam till they went to bed”. The sayings come from the conditions and
treatment of patients at Bethlem Asylum. Conditions both at Bethlem and
the York Asylum were absolutely terrible. Inmates were chained to the walls
by their necks, or shackled to the walls by their ankles, they slept in cells
just like prison cells, with bars rather than a door. The smell was putrid as
sanitary conditions were light, and ventilation was virtually non-existent. The
atmosphere was one of fear. Disease was also very common. Inmates had
to sleep on a bed of straw normally on the stone floor. Abuse was rife from
physical to sexual, it seemed as though the only type of people who worked
there were bullies – sadistic and cruel.
In the 19th century people used to go to ‘Bedlam’ to stare and poke
fun at those on the inside. Before the people went in to view inmates, the
8 |
February 2015
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Top: Postcard of Three Counties Hospital from the Doreen Rix collection . The
colourised black and white image is postmarked 17 February 1906.
Above: Samuel Tuke – instigator of the reform in care for the mentally ill. An
etching by C. Callet. – Wellcome from downloaded from Wikimedia
attendants would hit, beat up or abuse the poor unfortunates just so there
would be a good show for the paying public.
For a simple coin, one could go through the ‘Penny Gate’ at Bedlam, this
allowed you virtual freedom to peer into the cells, poke fun, shout and be
abusive to the poor inmates and laugh at them. View the freaks at the “Show
of Bethlehem” that was the headline in the tourist books of the day. Entry
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