One Thing I Remember
Glenside Hospital’s wards + homes
Exploring Glenside
In 2025 Glenside Hospital Museum received funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund in support of the Protect our Wellbeing (PoW!) project.
This has given us a precious opportunity to explore and preserve the history hidden within the walls of the former Glenside Hospital (originally purpose-built as Bristol Lunatic Asylum).
Read on for some fascinating facts about the hospital including its buildings, wards and grounds.
If you'd like to join us for an in-person guided tour of the grounds, check our events calendar and look out for Exploring Glenside events, or download the Bloomberg Connects app to follow a free self-guided trail.
In the process we hope you'll be enlightened by the approach to mental health care in years gone by, many elements of which are being gradually reintroduced back into mainstream medicine.
The former social club for Glenside Hospital
Glenside Hospital
A leisurely stroll through the grounds
Glenside Hospital was originally purpose-built as Bristol Lunatic Asylum in 1861. Its extensive grounds were designed with health and wellbeing in mind.
The main hospital building is now used by the University of West of England as their Health and Social Care Campus. The small building now adorned with colourful graffiti is a student union in the present day, but once served as the social club for Glenside Hospital.
Glenside Hospital social club membership card from 1987
The social club
The ultimate hospital hangout
Built in the 1960s by the hospital's works department using funds donated by staff, the Glenside Hospital social club was a whirlwind of activity.
Mondays to Wednesdays it served as the Sunshine Club, allowing patients a change of scenery, to socialise and relax with a half-pint of beer at certain events.
Thursdays to Sundays the hospital staff enjoyed some down time:
“I remember this being one of the most important documents for a student nurse. Beer at about 70p a pint and a short stagger across the road to the nurses home at the end of the evening. Great times.”
Paul Beney, student nurse in 1987
The social club hosted a huge range of events, from coffee mornings and jumble sales to bingo nights and cabaret, not to mention all the seasonal events you'd expect. Staff would host family events and rumour has it more than one marriage proposal happened here!
The Glenside Retired Staff Association ensured that hospital staff could continue to attend the social club after retirement.
Glenside Hospital Museum, originally the hospital chapel
The chapel
A place of worship for Glenside patients
The hospital chapel was built in 1881. It is now a Grade II listed building, home to Glenside Hospital Museum.
The hospital chaplain Richard Meredith-Jones used to host services each Sunday morning for the patients to attend. He was affectionately known by staff and patients as "Dick the Vic" and served the hospital for around 25 years.
Richard Meredith-Jones a.k.a. Dick The Vic and his colleague
The hospital chaplain
Affectionately known by all as "Dick the Vic"
Richard Meredith-Jones worked as the vicar at Glenside Hospital for around 25 years. An empathetic non-judgemental man he'd held positions at other prestigious church parishes, but at Glenside really felt he'd found his calling.
If patients were unwell or not up to visiting the chapel for the Sunday service he would run across the grass, taking the communion wine bottle to them on the wards to ensure they were still included.
When patients did attend church at Glenside, it could often be a rather lively affair:
I loved taking the patients to church on a Sunday, you never knew what was going to happen.
A little scenario: Everything is relatively quiet as Dick the Vic asks us to pray. Crash goes the doors and a gentleman marches down the aisle singing "onwards Christian soldiers" then lights his cigarette from the candles and then marches out again.
Sarah Hampson, 1970s student nurse at Glenside Hospital
"The Turret" at Glenside Hospital Museum
The Medical Superintendent's balcony
Now nicknamed the "turret"
Tea in the Turret at Glenside Hospital Museum
Tea in the Turret
Reinvented for visitors' enjoyment
Visitors to Glenside Hospital Museum can now book to have tea and cake in this charming little space.
Former greenhouses, now the car park for AWP Wickham Unit at Blackberry Hill Hospital
The greenhouses and hospital gardens
A bygone era
Although these greenhouses and the hospital farm no longer remain, they were an important part of Glenside's landscape for many years.
The farm and gardens provided invaluable but underutilised occupations for the patients in the early days of the hospital.
The farm enabled the hospital to be almost self-sufficient by providing a large selection of seasonal fruit and vegetables, plus chickens for poultry and eggs.
The on-site greenhouses were used to supply the wards with fresh flowers and plants for the benefit of patients and staff.
Farm workers at Glenside Hospital
Piggery and hospital farm
A bygone era
The piggery was very successful and consistently made a profit through both the sale of pedigree pigs and those for meat.
Government policy changed in 1954. Farming was considered ancillary to the overall hospital requirement, which was always the care and treatment of patients.
Due to this, 65 acres of agricultural land at both Stapleton and Barrow Hospital including all farm buildings, were sold in 1957/58. The majority of what was the farm at both sites is now housing, leaving the gardens which immediately surround the main building and chapel at Glenside.
Did you know?
The clock tower at former Glenside Hospital, now UWE Glenside
The iconic clock tower
A late addition to the hospital's architecture
Although not a building in its own right, the iconic clock tower deserves its time in the spotlight.
A key piece in Glenside's visual landscape, the clock tower wasn't actually part of the original construction in 1861 but came into being during the extensions and improvements from 1892-1984.
The central administration block was extended to include this impressive 120ft clock tower.
It used to chime loudly every 15 minutes until the bell was silenced during the First World War, and in 1952 sold.
The last time the bell was struck was by hand on VE Day, 8th May 1945. At 3pm Henry Adams, the hospital engineer, climbed into the belfry and manually struck the victory chime.
The former mortuary at Glenside Hospital
The mortuary
A spacious facility for the hospital mortician
Airing court / courtyard garden at former Glenside Hospital
Airing courts
A peaceful oasis in amongst the chaos
A kind of carnival where the fast runner, the fool the flighty and the fop jostle each other and many an exciting scene is witnessed, some amusing, some causing pain and pity and some fierce indignation and distain.Here might be seen the self-elected king, the beggar, doctors, lawyers and parsons, merchants, painters and philosophers, along with rogues and vagabonds.
These now-peaceful spaces are available for the enjoyment of staff and students at the University of the West of England's Glenside Campus.
Wildflower meadow covering the reservoir
The hospital reservoir
Hidden in plain sight
Reservoir inspection, c.1980s
Reservoir maintenance
An underground voyage
“There used to be a small boat on the underground reservoir for inspection, I can remember going into through the doors and down to the reservoir when I was a student nurse at Glenside Hospital..it was very eerie”Liz Viner
If you're keen to explore the history of Glenside Hospital more, please visit the following blog posts:
- Glenside Hospital's wards and homes
- What impression did Glenside Hospital have on those who lived and worked there?
- Butlins, stranger than a psychiatric hospital
Better still, pay us a visit at the museum or visit us virtually using the Bloomberg Connects app.
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