Bryn y Neuadd Hospital: Hidden Now Heard
Originally built as a mansion, the hospital
opened in 1898 to care for “lunatics and
idiots”. It remained in the ownership of an
English Health Trust until 1967.
The mansion was demolished and the long stay hospital was built in 1971. It was designed to house residents with a learning disability from Oakwood Park and The North Wales Hospital in Denbigh.
As a newer hospital ‘Bryn’, as it is known for short, did not have the constraints of older institutions. It recruited newly qualified staff and offered placements to students.
Patients’ were known as ‘residents’ to help with the idea that the hospital was a home.
While the hospital still had some old
fashioned practices, it was forward thinking in many ways.
In 1996 the hospital’s closure was delayed. Hospital management commissioned an independent report into residents’ rights.
As a result of the report the hospital
improved the lives and rights denied to
residents in other hospitals.
