Victorian patient portraits: a talk with Dr Paul Tobia 19th March 2026
Bristol Walk Fest events at Glenside Hospital Museum
Glenside Hospital Museum: a hidden gem that many in Bristol still haven't discovered yet
Most people in Bristol have never heard of us. We’re a museum documenting the history of mental health care, hidden inside the walled grounds of a former Victorian asylum. Much like mental health itself, our museum is virtually invisible from public view.
You'll find us by exploring just inside the gates of UWE Glenside Campus in Fishponds, and this Saturday 7th March and Saturday 14th March we’re doing something we’ve never done for the general public before. Don’t miss your chance!
Read on to find out about this fantastic opportunity...
About Glenside Hospital Museum
Glenside Hospital Museum sits inside the Glenside Campus of the University of the West of England (UWE) in Fishponds, Bristol. We occupy the Grade II listed (nationally protected) chapel of what was the Bristol Lunatic Asylum, opened in 1861, which became Glenside Hospital and finally closed in 1994.
Our collection spans more than 130 years of mental health and learning disability care, and we have been run entirely by volunteers for 40 years.
We have been supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, whose grants have helped us develop our collection and reach people who had never heard of us, which is why taking part in National Lottery Open Week again this year feels so right.
"When people do eventually make their way to us, says Carly Wong — our Digital Engagement Officer, whose father worked here as a psychiatric nurse in the early 1970s — they often describe us as a hidden gem.
We think it’s remarkable that more people don’t know about us. But that’s exactly what National Lottery Open Week is for.
People often arrive expecting something dark and leave describing us as one of the most fascinating and hopeful places they’ve ever visited.
Between 1861 and 1900, nearly 46% of patients left the hospital recovered or relieved within a year of admission.
We tell that story honestly; the full, complicated, human truth. Our ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) display doesn’t simply say "ECT was good" or "ECT was bad". Instead it carries quotes from people who found it helpful and people who found it deeply difficult.
We don’t shy away from the difficult side of things, because you can’t, can you? If we did, it simply would not be true.
On Saturday 7th March and Saturday 14th March from 10am-4pm we’re opening our collection in a way we never have before.
National Lottery Open Week
On Saturday 7th March and Saturday 14th March any National Lottery ticket or scratchcard gives you exclusive access to ‘History in Your Hands’: a guided, hands-on encounter with original objects from our collection that we don’t normally make available to individual visitors.
Usually this experience is reserved for schools, universities and educational groups. For one day only, we’re opening it up to everyone.
We'll be including a straitjacket that you can pick up and try on, a deactivated ECT machine, patient artworks and Victorian medicine bottles.
In most museums, you look. Here, on this one Saturday, you can touch! We currently have no plans to make it happen again.
We also permanently have a padded cell you can walk into, not as a spectacle, but as context for understanding a history that is more complex, and more compassionate, than the stereotypes suggest.
As Carly puts it: “Having your hands on these objects connects you to that history in a way that just reading about it never can.”
Plan your visit to Glenside Hospital Museum
History in Your Hands: National Lottery Open Week exclusive
Date: Saturday 7th March + Saturday 14th March 2026
Time: 10am–4pm. No pre-booking required (though ticketed entry is quicker).
Entry: £5 donation for annual pass (cash / card accepted) | Under 18s free | One National Lottery ticket covers your whole party
Address: UWE Glenside Campus, Blackberry Hill, Stapleton, Bristol, BS16 1DD
Getting here: By bike: 25 minutes from Bristol city centre via the Frome Valley Walkway. By bus: First Bus 48a. By car: Saturday visitors can use the University car park outside the museum (free of charge).
Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible with fully accessible toilet within the museum.
National Lottery Open Week Ambassador Joanna Page says:
“The best days out are always the ones you don’t see coming. For one week only, hundreds of amazing places across the UK throw open their doors — from big names to hidden gems, all made possible because of National Lottery funding. There really is something for everyone, so get involved.”
Plan your National Lottery Open Week 2026
Our ‘History in Your Hands’ experience is part of National Lottery Open Week (7th–15th March 2026), when hundreds of venues across the UK unlock special experiences for National Lottery players.
Find out what else is on at www.nationallotteryopenweek.com
Any National Lottery ticket, scratchcard or Instant Win Game (physical or digital) qualifies. Ts&Cs apply. 18+.
Tea in the Turret: our secret room above the chapel
National Lottery Open Week in 2025 gave us a chance to showcase an entirely new experience at Glenside Hospital Museum.
Above the chapel, up a secret spiral staircase, is a room that was originally the private balcony of the hospital’s most senior doctor. It was once a place where he could observe chapel services with his family, while remaining slightly apart from the patient congregation. For decades it was a leaking store room: filing cabinets, random mannequins and a damp ceiling.
It was National Lottery Open Week last year that changed that. When we were asked what we’d offer to visitors, Carly asked our museum director Stella Man: "what’s actually in that room?"
When she climbed the stairs for the first time, she said: “This is absolutely incredible. I can’t believe you’re using this for storage.” Our museum director enthusiastically agreed for a team of volunteers to help clear it out, redecorate, and Carly herself created a display that mirrors the challenging themes of our collection, but in a more playful way.
Tea and cake appeared and it has been fully booked every single week since April 2025.
Carly's long connection with Glenside
Carly grew up with Glenside as part of her family’s story. Her father came from Hong Kong in 1969 and started working as a psychiatric nurse at the hospital in the early 1970s, later transitioning to working in the same job in the community when the opportunity came up.
Carly says: “Our museum has been around for 40 years and yet there are still so many people in the city who don’t know about us. When people do eventually make their way to us, they often say "this is such a hidden gem".
There’s so much to explore and see. "History in your hands" is just going to be something a bit different, because normally in a museum you can’t touch anything, but having your hands on the objects connects you to the history in a way that just reading about it never can.
Our museum is appealing to all ages, and ultimately mental health is a subject that everybody should know about.”
The floor Sir Stanley Spencer scrubbed
Our chapel has a history that goes beyond mental health care. During the First World War, the Bristol Lunatic Asylum was requisitioned and became the Beaufort War Hospital, treating nearly 30,000 soldiers.
Among those who served was a young Stanley Spencer, later celebrated as one of the great British painters of the twentieth century, who worked as a medical orderly from 1915 to 1916.
He wrote of his second day: “I had to scrub out the Asylum Church. It was a splendid test of my feelings about this war.”
That chapel is the building you walk into. A blue plaque commemorating his time here was unveiled on the 50th anniversary of his death in 2009.
When you visit our museum you are walking, quite literally, in his footsteps.
National Lottery Heritage Fund support for our museum
Our most recent National Lottery Heritage Fund grant, of £48,900 awarded in 2024, helped launch our PoW! (Protect our Wellbeing) initiative. Among an exciting array of events, it also allowed us to capture personal video memories of everyday life at the hospital and start to make long term plans for a permanent new home for our collection in the future. We were also featured in BBC Two’s A House Through Time Series 3.
Darren Henley, Chief Executive of Arts Council England and Chair of the National Lottery Forum, says: “From the nation’s most-loved museums and heritage sites to grassroots projects and hidden local gems, every ticket helps create something extraordinary. National Lottery Open Week is our way of saying thank you to the players who make this possible. Because of you, an incredible £32 million is raised each week for good causes. Wherever your interests lie, there’s an experience waiting to be unlocked.”
