Kirkbride Buildings - Insane Asylums

[Robbie]

I'm going to be featuring an insane asylum soon in one of my games. Or at least using a similar concept but with a more medieval flare to it. So I did a little research and found out there's a LOT of information and floorplans on these amazing buildings, some of which still stand.

The Kirkbride concept (http://www.kirkbridebuildings.com/index.html) was a belief that using a certain style of building and decorum would lend to the healthy recovery or curing of mentally ill patients along with the barbaric medical treatments utilized in those days. While not particularly interested in the medical treatments, I'm definitely interested in the buildings and floorplans.

The most useful resource I found was an urbex'er in the uk who has explored many of the uk asylums and presents maps, but if you look through the previous link and this following one you'll find some pretty amazing layouts.

http://www.simoncornwell.com/urbex/frames.htm

I'm attaching some of the more amazing ones for a glance.

You can also find many more by scrounging around here: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~asylums/index.html

[Steel General]

That second one could be a heckuva palace or something too...

[ravells]

Fantastic find!! I hope he adds the plans to the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum. I had an ex who lived nearby (not an inmate!) - really beautiful building with the longest corridor in the country (almost a quarter of a mile long, I think). When I saw it it was being converted into a luxury housing estate (but the frontage was listed so they couldn't knock that bit down), so it was easy to get in and poke around in the derelict ruins. I wish I had taken some pictures. That was one spooky place.

[Ronbo]

thanks for posting this. I admit to being a "gamer." Oh, the horror. Anyway, for some reason, unkown to me, I have never seen any realistic floor plans of ANYTHING in any gaming supplement. They can't get a correct layout of a convenience store or a gas station right. Let alone something as complex as a hospital.