John Langdon Down

L3 D8. After lots of rain in the night and early this morning the sun shone so I went for a walk round the local area including Langdon Park and the Langdon Down Centre which was previously called Normansfield Hospital. (See extra) The hospital (in the building which was originally called the White House) was set up in 1868 by John Langdon Down the physician after whom Down’s syndrome is named. He previously worked in an asylum in Surrey for 10 years and while there transformed it from a place of horror where patients were subject to corporal punishment, kept in dirty conditions and were unschooled to a place of kindness and many activities. By 1876 there were 160 mentally disabled residents at Normansfield so the house was expanded. Down and his wife did their best to educate them and exposed them to a wide variety of mentally stimulating activities. In 1879 a theatre was built and this is one of the few remaining Victorian theatres of its type and is often used as a filming location, including for Downton Abbey. The hospital was run by the NHS from 1951 until it closed in 1997. Eventually the site was redeveloped, the building converted into many flats and other houses and blocks of flats built in the grounds. The whole site is now called Langdon Park and the Downs Syndrome Association operates the Langdon Down Centre which includes a Museum and the theatre.