Insane In The Brain

A while back, mooching through town on a shopping trip, a bloke grabbed hold of me without warning, and shouted something along the lines of "Mario Lanza! The greatest, he was the greatest...he was a singing bricklayer. Peanuts! It's all peanuts!" before letting go of me and running off down the street. Business as usual. Just another encounter with one of this city's endearingly large population of utter lunatics.

Leaving aside the question of why there seems to be more people merrily off their tits round here than anywhere else I've ever been (I have to admit, I'm starting to think there's something in the water), it isn't a new phenomenon. In the early 19th century, an institutional solution was required, and someone had a bright idea: why don't we round them all up and stick them in a big Gothic building up on the moor? I mean, I'm almost certain that isn't the stuff that nightmares are made of. They'll be happy as Mad Larry up there.

And so, the County Lunatic Asylum opened in July 1816, and proved such a raging success that it was soon extended. It seems that people couldn't get enough of having their odder relatives locked up in a cold, dark hellhole, and by 1940 the Moor Hospital boasted a capacity of up to 3,200 patients. There are Football League stadiums that hold fewer people than that. It would appear that insanity was a growth industry.

In December 1999, the hospital closed its doors for the last time, and all patients were transferred elsewhere. As the building itself is listed, it's spent the last ten years standing derelict while the all-important decision is made as to what you can do with a place that looks like it sprang out of a Mary Shelley novel. While the moor is already a pretty scary place as I observed recently, the hospital adds a whole new terrifying dimension to the surrounding landscape. The grounds are partially overgrown, and the building seems to exert a brooding authority that always provokes a primal fear within me. Most of all, when I look at it, I wonder how it must have felt to have been branded insane and brought here. How it would have felt to walk through the wrought-iron gates and under the dark archway of the main entrance, knowing that you might have to spend the rest of your life here.

It's almost enough to send you running down the street, screaming about Mario Lanza and peanuts.