Hellingly Hospital

Inside one of the abandoned building's

Hellingly Hospital is an East Sussex County Asylum, and came about due to overcrowding at Haywards Heath Asylum (Sussex County Asylum). The council brought the 400 acre Park Farm Estate for £16,000, this estate was originally owned by the Earl of Chichester.
 Construction started in 1898, and by the time it opened on July 20th 1903, it had cost £353,400. Like many asylums, the two sexes were serrated for work and accommodation, with the east being for females, who done the laundry, sewing and nurses home. The west was the male ward and they took care of the workshops, boiler house, water tower and maintenance department.
  The buildings in the main complex were linked by a network of corridors, the north had a chapel and four villas, two of which housed female working patients. Another was for male working patients and the final villa was for mentally defunct children.  There was also an isolation hospital for infectious diseases placed in the woods in the North-West to prevent risk of infection and park house (hospital annexe) for accuse cases in the southwest of the main asylum.

The asylum had its own railway, which was used for transporting coal for the boilers and electricity for the plant. This closed in 1930, but the track was left till 1959, when it was finally lifted, this was the same time that the boilers were converted from coal to oil fuel.

During war developments, there was a conversion of the superintendents residence, turning it into a nurses home, Tennyson house and and a staff social club was also built. While these new buildings came to life, the old hospital farm closed.
  In the mid 1980's, Hellingly was 1 in 5 hospitals chosen to accommodate a medium secure unit (Ashen Hill). This was to the east of the main building and villas. After this, there was a decline in patient numbers, and this lead to the main building being vacated and was finally closed in 1994.

The water tower being demolished during redevelopment

With the building being left abandoned, it lead to arson attacks, vandalism and theft. In 2003, the site became popular with urban explorers. The site was left for people to just explore, until 2010, when it was cleared for housing, a few of the original buildings had been left. The Ashen Hill Secure Unit had been left fully operation until 2012, a low secure unit had opened on site in 2000 and then a medium secure unit in April 2012 (with 46 beds/ 3 wards - costing £7.5million), with more plans in place for units and housing.