1855 – Asylum, Earlswood, Redhill, Surrey

In 1850 an 155-acre site was purchased at Earlswood Common, with a public appeal launched to raise funds for the building of a model ‘Asylum for Idiots’ to house 400 residents designed by William Bonython Moffat. Queen Victoria subscribed 250 guineas in the name of the Prince of Wales who became a life member. Prince Albert took a special interest from the beginning, laying the foundation stone in June 1853 and opening the Asylum in June 1855. In 1862 Queen Victoria conferred a Royal charter on the asylum, later known as the Royal Earlswood Hospital. John Langdon Down, after whom Down’s syndrome was named, was medical superintendent of the hospital from 1855 to 1867. From 1855, the number of inmates was usually about 500. The hospital closed in 1997.