# Photos of High Royds, Psychiatric Hospital



## e19896 (Sep 28, 2008)

Here are the rest of the un published images from High Royds Lunatic asylum, taken over 2 visits, in those visits I have gained unique access to the place through trespass, something we all do as urban explorers, but to feed ourself the delusion we are a sum more than ourselves is feeding paranoia about our actions, they're bricking up and locking down at High Royds.







This is not due to visits of urban explorers, it has more to do with the place being trashed, in part due to it being left for over 2 years with little or no security, this has happened time and again to places of historical and social interest.






The work of has exposed the crimes of what I would call a concentration camp for the working class, you only need to read the story of Derek Hutchinson and others to realise the ugly truth of this place.






I was asked not to publish these images, due to the fact it gave the game away had been in, however people had visited before and during my 2 visits there has been many published images, it becomes crass to say we are informing the current owners of our trespass if we publish the images. I have no shame in my actions and using my work to expose the crimes that have been done at High Royds, this why I do urban exploration.

I shall be doing a last visit as there are unreached parts of this place I have not seen and would like to see, during each visit demographics have changed, and to be frank if there was a real concern over urban explorers been in and out, they would have locked it down a long while ago. The simple truth is the more it is left open to more it becomes a ruin and possible reason for them to demolish this place.






No, I feel our actions have made the current owners act, to stop this becoming a reality, the current game of bricking up and locking down is not to stop us lot, but to stop vandals and thieves nicking lead. I know from my past exploration of the former Middlewood Asylum, if we had documented the place and done what SilverStealth has done, we might have saved more than just the trees.

I would like for us all to go and do a Mass Exploration of High Royds, however I realise this will place a limit on future visits and continued documentation of its fall into Mother Earth's Reclamation Yard. Of course, I would like to see the demise of the structures that created the crass need for such places.






But we at least owe it to those who were beaten, abused and drugged against there will, had medical experiments done on them against there will, to ensure places such as High Royds are documented and left standing as reminder of the inhumanity of Capitalism, and for me to see it as a ruin is far better than the commercial gain and opportunity as a Mono-Suburbia, it is just another repeat of what this place once was before its close in 2003.

Myself, I love the omnipresent ghost of the past, love seeing it slowly decay into nothing.

This why I do what we name as urban exploration, the photos I take document the hidden beauty when mother earth's reclamation yard kicks in, I love the peeling paint, the weeds growing out the walls, if any one has read Day Of The Triffids, it goes some place to explain how fragile this all is, of course we owe it to the sheer arrogance and pomposity of places like High Royds, if only it was built as a community to replace the slums, that many had come from.

Of course it seemed to offer more, but it soon become just another prison, standing in this epic place, you feel the trapped soul of humanity, you can hear the screams of the tortured and abused, it leaves you cold, it can do nothing but haunt you.

You know you should only visit once, but something compels you to go time and time again, I have been an inmate in Middlewood Hospital, I watched its demise and danced on its ruins, it was grand to watch it become nothing, I only wish I had taken images but just sometimes the memory serves better, it has left me cold and haunted by my visit to High Royds, no doubt I shall return a couple more times and I would like to put T om Waits on the player (the whole world is green) and have one last dance in the ballroom with the ghost of yesterday, and no doubt cry as I do so..


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## editor (Sep 28, 2008)

Nice pics!

(*moved to photo forum)


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## e19896 (Sep 28, 2008)

editor said:


> Nice pics!
> 
> (*moved to photo forum)



Thanks i was posting it in the main one to provoke a debate, but here is where it should be i guess..


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## _angel_ (Sep 28, 2008)

Eerie. I'd like to see inside of it, apparently it's being turned into flats now.

It's not a million miles away from my son's special school in Guiseley. It's a bit horrible thinking a lot of the kids at that school wuold probably have been institutionalised somewhere like that, not all that long ago.


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## e19896 (Sep 28, 2008)

_angel_ said:


> Eerie. I'd like to see inside of it, apparently it's being turned into flats now.
> 
> It's not a million miles away from my son's special school in Guiseley. It's a bit horrible thinking a lot of the kids at that school wuold probably have been institutionalised somewhere like that, not all that long ago.



Yes flats they can not sell, i know the school give me a pm and ill tell more going back sometime next week, well fooking Eerie not one person who has done this place has not been spooked and read here  before you think ill have some of this..

The security are on this place, it is all stealth like, and parts have motion dectours and cctv you have to know the place i went with people who had there shit sussed..

There is a strange vibe there and i wonder could this be why the flats are not selling? as said pm me if you need more..


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## citygirl (Sep 28, 2008)

Wasn't it used by immigration to house asylum-seekers, in more recent times?   A true asylum ey.  Hard to imagine, this is how human beings have been(and possibly still are) "kept" in this country...


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## e19896 (Sep 28, 2008)

citygirl said:


> Wasn't it used by immigration to house asylum-seekers, in more recent times?   A true asylum ey.  Hard to imagine, this is how human beings have been(and possibly still are) "kept" in this country...



Yes parts was before closing 2003, from then to 2005 left to go to ruin, now becoming flats, the new new units are more harsh i visited the one at pinderfields and pass the one that has replaced middlewood, indeed i visited one down south there harsh places..


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## citygirl (Sep 28, 2008)

Pinderfields?  Pinderfields hospital, ya mean?  My life was saved at Pinderfields head injuries unit when i was 9...doubt it's related to anything. but meh


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## e19896 (Sep 28, 2008)

citygirl said:


> Pinderfields?  Pinderfields hospital, ya mean?  My life was saved at Pinderfields head injuries unit when i was 9...doubt it's related to anything. but meh



yes the same place was Stanley Royd Asylum

The Four Hospitals of the West Riding General Asylums Committee, later known as the Mental Hospitals Board.

1818 Stanley Royd
1872 Wadsley
1888 High Royds
1904 Storthes Hall


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## citygirl (Sep 28, 2008)

Err...just for the record...that's not the bit *I* was in


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## samk (Sep 28, 2008)

On the subject of abuse of power, why isn't there a form of jury trial for long term imprisonment like there is in the justice system?


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## Paulie Tandoori (Sep 29, 2008)

e19896 said:


> Thanks i was posting it in the main one to provoke a debate, but here is where it should be i guess..


tbh, its a pity that this has been moved as i think its a debate wort having inre: the physical reality of our care-in-the-community system of mental health care,, based as it is in times of crisis on a Victorian asylum model.

i once had a wander thru the catacombs of Springfield Hospital in Tooting and your comments of how you can _"feel the trapped soul of humanity, you can hear the screams of the tortured and abused, it leaves you cold, it can do nothing but haunt you"_ certainly resonate with my experience then.


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## _angel_ (Sep 29, 2008)

samk said:


> On the subject of abuse of power, why isn't there a form of jury trial for long term imprisonment like there is in the justice system?



It's scandalous, isn't it?


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## e19896 (Sep 29, 2008)

doing this report has upset some urban explorers, it is all about the code and keeping it quite, one is happy i wrote what i did and i say thanks for the feed back, when more time i'll ask a mod if this can be posted on the main forum..

we need time out, catch up with missed work hug some trees and just to come down, but we are going to do more in the near future..

Mean while read and see more http://pretentiousartist.com


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