After visiting the family in the new village of Cotford St Luke for a few weeks and continuously walking past this building which at present is used for accommodation flats, I was intrigued to find out what it was originally built for and used as. I found out from the trusty web that it was in fact a psychiatric hospital called Tone Vale Hospital, with patients originating from places as far apart as Porlock (on the north western edge of Somerset) and Yeovil (on the south eastern edge). Cotford St Luke is a new village that was established following the closure of Tone Vale Hospital and Cotford Asylum in the 1990s. The old asylum buildings were converted into housing commencing in the late 1990s.
A number of mental hospitals closed in the United Kingdom including Tone Vale Hospital during Margaret Thatcher's government as a policy was proposed stating more community care. In 1987, Tone Vale had 504 inpatients. In 1992, the number had reduced to 350, and in March 1994 to 117. The hospital closed in March 1995.
Trees glorious trees... around the area.
Did you Know??!!
Harold Gimblett, Somerset and England cricketer was admitted to Tone Vale with depression in 1953, he was treated with ECT. Electroconvulsive therapy, formerly known as electroshock, is a psychiatric treatment in which seizures are electrically induced in anesthetized patients for therapeutic effect. Treating severe depression and schizophrenia.
