this was on ward 10, as has been said, it was the blind unit, so was there to prevent patients walking into the pillar

its a type of paint called portafleck, basically a base coat with some different colour specks in it that all come together in the one tin(the base coat is water based emulsion, and the specks are oil based, so the two dont mix, this is sprayed from a special spray gun, all in one go, base and colour specks and then when dry is glazed over with a seal. its a quick and cheap option. the paint is cheap to buy and as its sprayed on, isnt as labout intensive to apply, making it popular for covering large wall areas. in fact it tales longer to mask off windows and doors than it does to paint the walls. very popular in hospitals schools and public buildings.

the mortuary attendant at whittingham hospital, when i was there, used to keep the milk for his tea on a small shelf inside the body fridge, he often joked that they were the only people he could absolutely trust not to drink it when he was out!!!!!

this ballroom bears a remarkable resemblance to the one in whittingham hospital in england, very very similar design despite being a continent apart!!!

ships hulls nearto and below the waterline tend to be treated with different paints to those above the waterline. below water they get treated with antifowling paint, this has a chemical in it that prevents growths of weed algae and limpets etc, this paint tends to be more hard wearing that ordinary rustproofing paint used above the waterline. most hulls tend to get treated about 2metres or sometimes more above the waterline.

ive just realised where this is, this is taken on ward 3, and the entrance is to the langdale unit, the lancashire interim secure unit, where dangerous mentally ill patients were sectioned to for their own and the publics protection. hence the removal of the glass and any way of seeing in. in all my time there, i never once saw these doors open.

cameron house wasnt destroyed by fire. the health authority realised that the slated had some valus, so they stripped the roof of and sold the lot!!!

willy banjo is a shop in preston that sells bongs and other erm, herbal smoking paraphenalia

i think the effect is the light outside, and the dark inside, coupled with the damage to the doors, have you noticed, one has been damaged from inisde the room and one from outside.

as a plumber there in the 1980's i replaced most of the lead on this roof, happy days!!!

this is definately ward 12 taken from ward 11. the low roof just below the treeline is the laundry

of course theres a more mundane explanation for the boarding up of windows.in the early pic the patients would be locked in cells or very very heavily sedated, and there would be a high ratio of staff to patients, however, as sedatives developed, patients were more free to wander the hospital at will, and , well, its still a mental hospital, and glass isnt exactly a friendly material. also its not very private if the other side is not something that should be public, like a bathroom entrance or toilet for example.

and yes, that is the same shot!!

many many moons ago these would have been the ubiquitous padded cell. obviously the doors arent original. drug advancements eant that the padded cell was out of use many many decades ago, these small rooms were all offices and staff rooms or store rooms by the 1970's the x's might have amore recent explanation. after wjhittingham shut., lancashire police used the empty buildings to train its dog teams in search techniques, so the x's might have indicated that the rooms had been searched in some exercise.

this is one of the only open corridors at whittingham, directly opposite the open side of the corridor is the dballroom, behind the wall to the right is the supervisors private allotment garden(see last picture)

and, yes, thats a tiled floor.

this is the lawns complex. when the hospital was built, the superintendant lived on site, in a big 'house' that was a part of the hospital, linked by 2 corridors, but seperate, locked off and private. it was a huge dwelling with about 7 or 8 bedrooms, offices , even a large private garden and allotment.etc etc. in late years, it was refurbished as a day centre for patients, with a cafe(where my wife worked) a shop, and a tv lounge, upstairs was a small library, a pool table and a full size snooker table, there was also a quiet lounge. and s taff room where the nursing staff devisede things to help the patients pass the day. the connection with the superintendant wasnt completely lost though. anyone who worked there will have known the road that leads up past this building from haighton mannor as 'supers(superintendants) hill'

i think this is in the laundry store room

this is either ward 7 taken from ward 6 or ward 14 taken from ward 15. the building was built with a mirror image of itself, as you will see from the google earth pics, so this could be either, a bit of detail in the background might make it easier to id, but i would think its probably ward 7

when i worked there, the place wasnt the depressing nuthouse it seems here, add in a couple of thousand patients, and as many very very dedicated staff and it was actually a generally happy place to be. we tend to look upon asylums as bad places, but whittigham did offer asylum from the world outside, it was a complete community seperated from the pressures of the outside world.
and if this is on ward 12, then the door at the end leads to the old hospital laundry

most of the abuse wasnt done on 16, it was on the ward next door, another 3 storey block that was formerly ward 8, after the enquiry, in a bid to remove any stigma, the ward was completely refurbished and re opened as ward S, therefore whittinghams wards in st lukes went 1+2(langdale unit, mixed sex), 3(female) 4(male) 5-corridor ward, no patients, but all cells unused when i was there just offices and the hospitals 'black museum', 6(f), 7(m) ward S-formerly wd8 (mixed on 3 floors) ward 9-again a corridor ward but used for the hospital libraryand other offices , wd 10(mixed-blind unit) wd 11(m) wd 12(f) no wd 13, obviously!!, wd 14-(f) formerly the tb ward, wd 15, male, and wd 16, mixed.
wards 3,4,S(8) 16, 11 and 12 were 3 storey wards the rest, , 6,7, 14, and 15 were 2 storey. there were another 3 hospitals on site as well as this one, st lukes, so the numbering actually went up to ward 46.

iirc, this ramp leads up to the main coridor from the langdale unit. a few pictures back theres another view from the other side of the doors at the top(behind the arched door/window frame. the mortuary when i was at whittingham was in a seperate building with 2 small chapels of rest, one r/c and one c of e, and a big fridge for the bodies. in the centre was a big stone lined room with a post mortem theatre. after that was closed and demolished, they converted the rooms that used to house the hospital coblker, who in times gone by, made shoes and boot and also surgical built up shoes and clogs for staff and patients alike.

and the floor i have to asy(because ive been below it many times) is a propper sprung dancehall floor. the pic might not show how huge the place is either, the two spekers hung either side of the stage are about 8 feet high and the stage is getting on for 40 feet across. there are 3 full size badminton courts layed out on the floor. we used to skive off sometimes and go and watch the films in there, and the xmas dances were always good fun. happy days indeed!!!

one of the other maitainance men, a bricklayer called jimmy fletcher, had a great sense of humour, he used to make garden gnomes from a mould and plaster, paint them and then install them all over the hospital. in the top right hand corner as this pic faces, is a shelf, just below the roof, and standing on the shelf, watching the ballroom are two gnomes, two more are diagonally opposite them. if they could tell tales eh!!!!

and the red doors at the end led down a ramp into the old wards 1 and 2 which were known as the langdale unit, the only truly secure ward there when i worked at whittingham, between 84 and 95.

ive walked down this corridor many times!! the dooorway on the left is the entrance to the kitchen and potwash area, as you can see the rails on the wall to stop the trolleys of food fram damaging the plaster, opposite this doorway is the entrance to the ballroom.