St Lawrence's Hospital, Caterham

The facility was commissioned by the Metropolitan Asylums Board and designed by John Giles.[1] It opened as the Metropolitan Asylum for Chronic Imbeciles in 1870.[1] A nurses' home was added to the asylum in 1889[1] and it became Caterham Mental Hospital in 1920.[2]

In 1928 Joey Deacon, the author and television personality, was admitted to the hospital where he remained for the rest of his life.[3] London County Council took administrative control of the facility in 1930.[2] A nurse was killed when a bomb fell on the hospital in November 1940 during the Second World War.[1] It was renamed St Lawrence's Hospital after the local parish in 1941 and it joined the National Health Service in 1948.[2]

In 1981 Silent Minority, a documentary film made by Nigel Evans for ATV, highlighted the conditions of mental patients at the Borocourt Hospital near Reading, Berkshire and at St Lawrence's Hospital in Caterham.[4]

After the introduction of Care in the Community in the 1980s the hospital reduced in size and closed in 1994.[1] Most of the buildings have been demolished but the nurses' home has been converted into flats.[1]