When we talk about 10 famous people who closed their final chapter inside a lunatic asylum, we’re peeking into a darker side of history where brilliance, scandal, and tragedy collided. Today’s list blends medical breakthroughs, daring disguises, haunting poetry, and even a little feline art – all ending behind the iron‑grated doors of institutions meant for the “mad.”

10 famous people Who Ended Their Days In Asylums

10 The Savior Of Mothers

Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian physician of the mid‑19th century, earned the modern moniker “savior of mothers” for championing hand‑washing among obstetricians to curb the deadly childbed fever. Ironically, his crusade cost him his freedom: after a decade of ridicule and professional exile, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was involuntarily confined to an asylum in 1865. Within weeks, an untreated gangrenous wound festered into sepsis, and Semmelweis died, his pioneering work barely acknowledged by his peers.

Semmelweis began his clinical career in 1846 at Vienna’s General Hospital, where two maternity wards served different social classes. He quickly noticed a stark disparity: the ward staffed by doctors suffered a mortality rate nearly five times higher than the one run by midwives. Determined to uncover the cause, he scrutinized every variable, eventually zeroing in on a single, simple habit – or lack thereof – among the physicians.

The male doctors never washed their hands after autopsies, whereas the female midwives habitually cleaned theirs. When Semmelweis instituted mandatory hand‑washing with chlorinated lime, mortality plummeted. He published his findings, hoping to spark a medical revolution, but the entrenched establishment dismissed him as a heretic. Ridiculed, he turned to alcohol, berated his critics, and spiraled into despair, culminating in his tragic asylum confinement and untimely death.

9 The Woman Who Joined The Army

Hannah Snell, an audacious 18th‑century Briton, rewrote gender norms by masquerading as a man and enlisting in the military. In 1745, after assuming the identity of her brother‑in‑law James Gray, she set out to locate her estranged husband, only to discover his death. Undeterred, she signed up for the army, later swapping to the Royal Marines – arguably becoming the first woman to serve in that branch.

Her service took her from Lisbon’s ports to the battlefields of India, where she endured a groin wound. To preserve her disguise, she enlisted the help of a local woman to extract the bullet in secret. After a five‑year stint, Snell returned home, allegedly revealing her true identity in a bustling tavern full of soldiers. She later sold her sensational story to a London publisher, earning a lifetime pension.

Despite her fame, Snell’s mental health waned in later years. She was eventually committed to the notorious Bedlam asylum, where she died in 1792, her once‑glorious tale fading into the shadows of history.

8 The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet

John Clare, celebrated as England’s premier rural poet, possessed an uncanny ability to paint the countryside’s subtle hues with verse. Born in 1793 to a farm‑labouring family in the East Midlands, Clare’s early life was a relentless grind of fieldwork to support his household. In 1820, his first collection, Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery, earned critical acclaim, yet financial hardship persisted, forcing him to juggle manual labor alongside literary pursuits.

The strain of poverty and relentless toil took a toll on Clare’s psyche. By 1836, his physician advised a stay at High Beech asylum in Essex for recuperation. After five years, he walked out, trekking an 80‑mile journey home on foot. Yet his respite was fleeting; five months later, he found himself back within institutional walls, this time at the Northampton Lunatic Asylum, where he would spend the remaining 23 years of his life.

Clare famously described the asylum as a “purgatorial hell” and a “French bastille of English liberty,” where innocent souls were trapped and tormented until death. His poetic legacy endures, but his final chapters were spent in the gray corridors of mental confinement.

7 The Man Who Drew Cats

Louis Wain, a 19th‑century London eccentric, earned worldwide fame for his whimsical cat illustrations. His artistic journey began with personal tragedy: after marrying at 23, his wife fell ill with terminal breast cancer. To lift her spirits, Wain sketched caricatures of their household cat, Peter, a private pastime that soon caught the eye of an Illustrated London News editor.

Commissioned to produce cat drawings for the newspaper, Wain’s work quickly captured the public imagination, cementing his reputation as “the man who drew cats.” However, his later years grew increasingly erratic; he became abusive toward his sisters, who lived with him, and his eccentricities intensified.

In 1924, the 64‑year‑old artist was admitted to Springfield Hospital in Tooting, a pauper’s asylum. Public outcry, bolstered by Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, led to his transfer to the more humane Bethlem Hospital, where he was allowed to continue his art in relative peace until his death.

6 The Murderous Mathematician

André Bloch, a French mathematician renowned for his work in complex analysis, left an indelible mark on the field with his eponymous theorem and constant. Yet his legacy is shrouded in darkness: after murdering his brother, aunt, and uncle during World War I, Bloch was confined to the Charenton asylum near Paris, where he spent the next 31 years conducting groundbreaking research.

Born in 1893 in Besançon, Bloch and his sibling Georges were drafted into the French army. While Georges lost an eye and was discharged, André returned home only to commit the triple homicide, citing a twisted belief in eradicating familial mental illness. When confronted by his psychiatrist, he dismissed emotional arguments, asserting that “above all there is mathematics and its laws.”

Within Charenton, Bloch continued to produce influential mathematical papers, his genius undimmed by his confinement. His story remains a stark reminder of the thin line between brilliance and madness.

5 The Minister Of Murder

Thomas Ley, born in England in 1880, forged a controversial political career after emigrating to Australia in 1886. Rising to serve as New South Wales’ Minister of Justice and later as a Member of Parliament, Ley’s tenure was riddled with scandal, most notably a series of mysterious deaths involving his political adversaries.

After his Australian career collapsed under the weight of these allegations, Ley returned to England with his mistress, Maggie Brook. There, he dabbled in dubious real‑estate schemes, promoted a fraudulent sweepstakes, and engaged in black‑market activities during World War II. In 1947, he was arrested, charged, and convicted for orchestrating the murder of John McBain Mudie—dubbed the “Chalkpit murder”—a crime linked to an alleged affair between Mudie and Brook.

Sentenced to death, Ley’s punishment was commuted to life imprisonment at Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane. However, a sudden cerebral hemorrhage claimed his life shortly after his confinement, ending a saga of political intrigue and murder.

4 The Mad Archer

Richard Archer Prince, a 19th‑century Scottish actor, earned the grim nickname “the Mad Archer” not for archery but for his tragic descent into violence. Born near Dundee in 1858, Prince pursued a theatrical career from a young age, moving to London around 1875 in hopes of stardom. Instead, he languished in minor roles and relied on the Actor’s Benevolent Fund for financial aid.

Plagued by alcoholism and erratic behavior, Prince’s resentment grew toward the celebrated actor William Terriss, who enjoyed considerable success and occasionally offered Prince assistance. After being denied further aid from the Benevolent Fund—an act Prince irrationally blamed on Terriss—he plotted revenge.

One night, Prince waited outside the Adelphi Theatre and stabbed Terriss to death as the latter arrived. Convicted of murder, Prince was deemed insane and sent to Broadmoor, where he spent the next four decades entertaining fellow inmates, ultimately finding a captive audience within the asylum’s walls.

3 America’s First Supermodel

Audrey Munson, hailed as America’s first supermodel, amassed an array of nicknames: “American Venus,” “Miss Manhattan,” and more. Her likeness graced the Walking Liberty Half Dollar and countless statues that still adorn landmarks such as the Manhattan Bridge, the Pulitzer Fountain, and the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

Munson’s downfall began in 1919 when her boarding‑house landlord, Dr. Walter Wilkins, became dangerously obsessed with her, even murdering his own wife to be with Munson. Though she played no part in the crime, the scandal devastated her career. Forced to relocate to Syracuse with her mother, the pair fell into poverty; her mother resorted to selling kitchen utensils door‑to‑door to survive.

In 1922, Munson attempted suicide, and her mental health deteriorated further. On her 40th birthday, her mother had her committed to St. Lawrence State Hospital for the Insane. After a brief stint in a nursing home, Munson repeatedly escaped, prompting her return to the asylum, where she remained until her death in 1996 at the age of 104, buried in an unmarked grave.

2 The Marquis De Sade

Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, better known as the Marquis de Sade, stands as perhaps the most infamous French author in history. His novels shocked 18th‑century France with explicit depictions of sexual cruelty, blasphemy, and violence—so much so that the term “sadism” derives from his name.

De Sade’s life mirrored his writings. He faced multiple arrests and brief imprisonments, often escaping through fines or family influence. However, the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon altered his fate. Napoleon, abhorring de Sade’s work, labeled it “abominable” and “depraved,” leading to his 1801 arrest and a diagnosis of “libertine dementia.” He was then confined to an insane asylum for the final eleven years of his life.

During his confinement, de Sade continued to write and stage plays until 1809, when he was placed in solitary confinement, stripped of writing materials, and denied visitors, sealing his tragic, isolated end.

1 The Great Composer

Robert Schumann, a towering figure of the Romantic era, remains one of Germany’s most celebrated composers. Born in 1810 in the Kingdom of Saxony, he began formal music study at age seven and quickly amassed a prolific output of nearly 150 works before his death at 46.

Schumann’s genius was shadowed by relentless mental illness. By 1854, his delusions intensified to the point where he feared harming his family. After a failed suicide attempt—jumping from the Rhine Bridge—he voluntarily entered an asylum, where he spent his final two years.

The exact cause of his psychosis remains debated. Contemporary doctors cited overwork and exhaustion, while modern scholars propose schizophrenia or manic‑depressive disorder. A family history of mental health issues—his mother’s depression, his father’s nervous breakdown, and his sister’s suicide—adds further complexity. Even the Nazis attempted a diagnosis, labeling him with vascular dementia, underscoring the enduring mystery surrounding his mind.

Schumann’s legacy endures through his music, but his final chapters unfolded behind the austere walls of a mental institution.

If you ever found yourself waking up inside a mental hospital, you might wonder how you could prove you’re not crazy and get out. The truth is, the United States and many other nations make it surprisingly easy for an innocent person to be involuntarily committed to an insane asylum. Below are ten astonishing examples of individuals who were mistakenly labeled insane and confined against their will.

10 Banking Conspiracy Theorist

Gustl Mollath, a modest German mechanic specializing in vintage automobiles, stumbled upon a massive banking scandal that would land him in a psychiatric ward for seven years. While Mollath restored cars for a living, his wife worked at HypoVereinsbank, one of Germany’s largest financial institutions. Through her position, Mollath learned of a substantial tax‑evasion operation conducted by the bank.

His discovery strained the marriage, leading to a divorce and accusations of domestic violence from his wife. Undeterred, Mollath filed a criminal complaint against HypoVereinsbank, alleging illicit money transfers to Switzerland that bordered on money‑laundering. The German media initially ignored his claims, but authorities did not. His wife, amid the divorce, alleged that he had slashed her tires and was abusive. Prosecutors seized on his whistleblowing as evidence of “paranoid delusions,” and he was involuntarily committed.

Although confined, bloggers, activists, and conspiracy theorists investigated his allegations and found them credible. Years later, an internal bank report confirming the tax‑evasion scheme leaked to the public, prompting police raids on HypoVereinsbank. Mollath was released by a court after his claims were validated.

9 NYPD Whistle‑Blower

Adrian Schoolcraft, a New York Police Department officer, took a stand against corruption within his own force. Beginning in 2008, he secretly recorded conversations that exposed illegal arrest quotas and widespread misconduct. When he presented his evidence, superiors dismissed his concerns, suggesting he was losing his sanity and recommending psychiatric treatment.

After a brief evaluation, a psychologist forced Schoolcraft to surrender his weapons and reassigned him to a menial desk job. Undeterred, he handed his tapes to Internal Affairs, which responded by placing him under “forced monitoring.” A NYPD lieutenant later confiscated his notes, and his father warned him of impending retaliation.

Police obtained a key to his apartment by claiming he was suicidal, entered, and handcuffed him to his bed, preventing him from calling for help. He was taken to Jamaica Hospital’s psychiatric ward, where he was held against his will for six days. Upon release, he sued the NYPD and the hospital, and his allegations were later vindicated by the Village Voice.

8 The USSR’s Critics

The Soviet Union notoriously used psychiatry to silence dissent. In the 1960s and ’70s, officials invented diagnoses such as “delusion of reformism” and “sluggish schizophrenia” to label critics as mentally ill. Writer Valery Tarsis, after smuggling his anti‑government novel The Bluebottle abroad, was deemed insane and confined to a Soviet mental hospital for eight months, where he penned the autobiographical novel Ward 7.

Poet Joseph Brodsky suffered a similar fate in 1963, accused of a “parasitic way of life.” He endured forced tranquilizer injections and cold‑water immersion, spending 18 months in an asylum.

7 Pain Medication Side Effects

In 1993, Nebraska resident John Montin took prescription pain medication for chronic back pain, which triggered a temporary psychosis. In a confused state, he knocked on a rural home’s door, claiming ancestral ownership. Conflicting police reports described an 11‑hour shootout; at trial, the homeowners allegedly threatened him with shotguns, prompting Montin to hide in a ditch.

Although the jury cleared him of attempted murder and other charges, they found him “by reason of insanity” based on police accounts, leading to his involuntary commitment. The medication’s effects wore off, but the psychiatric staff never re‑evaluated him. Montin remained institutionalized for 20 years until a doctor finally reassessed him, declared him sane, and released him. He later sued the hospital for $33 million.

6 Anti‑Segregation Activist

Clennon Washington King Jr., a history professor at Alcorn State University, championed desegregation in 1950s Mississippi. After writing letters urging school integration, he faced threats, attempted to enroll his child in an all‑white school, and later applied to the University of Mississippi—an institution that barred Black students.

University officials labeled his efforts as “crazy,” resulting in his involuntary commitment. His brother secured his release after a 12‑day stay. Two years later, James Meredith succeeded where King could not, becoming the first Black student at Ole Miss.

5 The Surveiled Honors Student

Sophia Chinemerem Eze, a Nigerian international honors student at Brooklyn College, suspected her landlord of installing a hidden camera in her bedroom and defaming her online. She reported these concerns to campus security and a psychiatrist, but received no assistance. Despite having no mental‑health history, school officials forced her into an ambulance and transferred her to Kings County Hospital’s psychiatric ward without consent.

Eze was involuntarily committed for two weeks, during which she was barred from completing her final exams. After release, she transferred out of Brooklyn College and sued the mental‑health facility, winning $110 000, while also filing a lawsuit against the college.

4 China’s Dissidents

China, like the USSR, has a history of labeling dissenters as mentally ill. Farmer Xu Lindong, with only a fourth‑grade education, helped a neighbor petition for land ownership. After his petitions were rejected, authorities deemed his activism insane, committing him to a mental hospital where he endured 54 electro‑shock treatments, forced restraints, and medication.

Lindong attempted suicide three times and spent 6.5 years in two facilities before a journalist exposed his case, leading to his release. Similar cases include Xu Wu, a former security guard who faced four years of involuntary commitment after a wage dispute.

3 Homosexuality As A Mental Illness

Before the 20th century, psychiatry classified many non‑conforming behaviors as mental disorders, including homosexuality. The American Psychiatric Association listed it as a disorder until 1973. In 1991, 14‑year‑old Lyn Duff publicly came out as a lesbian. Her mother, rejecting her identity, placed her in Rivendell Psychiatric Center in Utah, where conversion therapy was attempted.

Hospital staff forced Duff to watch lesbian pornography while smelling ammonia—a Pavlovian technique—to “cure” her. She endured psychotropic drugs, hypnosis, and solitary confinement for 168 days. She escaped in May 1992, fled to San Francisco, and successfully terminated her mother’s parental rights, later being adopted by a lesbian couple.

2 Ex‑Muslim Nigerian

Mubarak Bala, a former Muslim from Nigeria, publicly renounced Islam, prompting his family to label him mentally ill. The first doctor found no signs of illness, but a second doctor, persuaded by the family, diagnosed his atheism as a “side effect” of personality change. He was involuntarily committed and drugged for 18 days.

While inside, Bala used Twitter and email to plead for help. A humanist charity intervened, securing his release. Post‑release, he faced death threats and went into hiding.

1 The First Hand‑Washing Doctor

In the 19th century, Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian physician, observed that doctors moved from dead patients directly to maternity wards without washing their hands, causing high infant mortality. He advocated rigorous hand‑washing, sparking outrage among colleagues who accused him of absurdity.

After being dismissed from Vienna General Hospital, Semmelweis fell into poverty and depression. In 1865, he was committed to an asylum, where workers violently beat him when he demanded release. He died at 47 from a blood infection.

Two decades later, Louis Pasteur’s germ theory validated Semmelweis’s recommendations, leading to widespread hand‑washing practices that dramatically reduced infant mortality. The “Semmelweis reflex” now describes the tendency to reject new ideas that challenge established norms.

The saga of “lunatic asylums” – later rebranded as psychiatric hospitals – is a grim, shadow‑laden chronicle that reads like a horror novel. From the 19th‑century notion of locking away anyone deemed abnormal, to the brutal, unscientific treatments that turned these stone walls into prisons of terror, the legacy is as dark as the corridors themselves. Today, many of these abandoned structures sit silent, yet countless visitors report bone‑chilling encounters, suggesting that the anguish of centuries‑old abuse has left a lingering, restless energy. In this guide we count down the top 10 haunted asylums that continue to whisper their tragic stories to anyone brave enough to listen.

What Makes a Facility Part of the Top 10 Haunted Asylums?

10 St. Augustine’s Asylum

Often referenced as Kent County Lunatic Asylum, St. Augustine’s Asylum rests in Chartham, Kent, England. Operating from 1876 until its doors finally closed in 1993, the institution spent 117 years housing untold suffering. In the 1970s a courageous nurse teamed with a university researcher to compile a damning dossier exposing the rampant misuse of electro‑shock therapy – often administered without clear justification – and other cruel practices that stained the asylum’s reputation.

Modern explorers who brave the crumbling remnants speak of an unsettling presence: footsteps that echo behind them, flickering orbs of light, and an oppressive wave of dread that settles like a heavy blanket. Even without any paranormal explanation, the bleak, decaying interiors captured on video are enough to send shivers down anyone’s spine.

9 Ararat Lunatic Asylum

When Ararat Lunatic Asylum – later renamed Aradale – first opened its doors in Ararat, Victoria, in 1867, it claimed the title of Australia’s largest mental institution. The doors finally shut in 1997, after a century of housing tens of thousands of patients, including many violent offenders whose mental conditions barred them from conventional prisons.

Legends of haunting have clung to Ararat ever since, largely because more than 13,000 lives were lost within its stone corridors. Visitors report seeing apparitions and feeling an unmistakable sorrow that seems to seep from the very walls, making the site a magnet for ghost‑tour enthusiasts across the continent.

8 Taunton State Hospital

Established in 1854 in Taunton, Massachusetts, Taunton State Hospital sheltered thousands of individuals with mental health challenges. Among its most infamous residents was Honora Kelley, dubbed “Jolly Jane,” who allegedly confessed to thirty‑one murders and claimed a twisted ambition to out‑kill every helpless soul she could find. Legend has it that her murderous spirit never found peace, lingering within the abandoned halls to this very day.

Adding to the macabre lore, rumors persist of a secret Satanic cult that allegedly used the basement for dark rituals, sacrificing patients in gruesome ceremonies. Witnesses have reported shadowy figures scuttling along the walls and an invisible force that inexplicably blocks anyone from descending the lowest step of the basement stairs.

7 Beechworth Lunatic Asylum

Beechworth Asylum – also known as Mayday Lunatic Asylum – operated from 1867 until 1995 in the Victorian town of Beechworth, Australia. Over its 128‑year lifespan, more than 9,000 patients met their end within its walls, and some are rumored to still wander the corridors.

Among the most tragic tales is that of a woman who was hurled from an upper‑floor window solely because of her Jewish faith; a rabbi’s desperate attempt to rescue her arrived too late, leaving her to die on the asylum’s lawn. Another lingering spirit is a young boy named James, who is said to converse with visiting children. The grounds are also said to be populated by ghostly doctors, nurses, and a host of other spectral residents, each bearing their own sorrowful backstory.

6 Athens Lunatic Asylum

Founded in 1874 in Athens, Ohio, the Athens Lunatic Asylum admitted both the mentally ill and the criminally insane. Overcrowding, chronic underfunding, and a reputation for relentless abuse quickly turned the facility into a nightmare. Patients were subjected to harsh electro‑shock treatments, and the most chilling practice documented was the frequent use of ice‑pick lobotomies.

The expansive grounds are dotted with thousands of unmarked graves, each bearing only a numeric identifier – the original meaning of these numbers lost to time. Visitors to the burial sites report seeing ghostly silhouettes that refuse to fade. Inside the asylum, a faint outline – allegedly left by a deceased patient – persists despite repeated cleaning attempts, serving as a haunting reminder of the institution’s grim past.

5 Trans‑Allegheny Lunatic Asylum

Trans‑Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, perched in West Virginia, is as awe‑inspiring as it is terrifying. It ranks as the world’s second‑largest asylum and the second‑largest hand‑cut stone masonry building after the Kremlin. Though designed for a modest 240 patients, by the 1950s it was crammed with ten times that number, even briefly housing the infamous Charles Manson.

The asylum’s dark history of overcrowding, abuse, and neglect fuels its reputation for paranormal activity. Visitors describe an overwhelming sense of suffering, alongside sightings of apparitions. One notorious spirit, Ruth, is known for aggressively confronting guests, while the echo of screams from the old electro‑shock chambers still reverberates. A former building manager once witnessed forty patient‑room doors slam shut in unison. Today, owners have embraced the eerie legacy, offering regular ghost tours and themed events.

4 Danvers Lunatic Asylum

Danvers Lunatic Asylum, perched in Danvers, Massachusetts, occupies the very ground once known as Salem Village – the epicenter of the 1692 witch trials. Its gothic architecture inspired H. P. Lovecraft’s Arkham Sanitarium, which later influenced the infamous Arkham Asylum of Batman fame.

Patient care at Danvers deteriorated to the point where the institution earned the moniker “modern concentration camp.” Severe overcrowding meant many patients were forgotten, sometimes enduring days without food or isolation. The asylum is also infamous as the birthplace of the prefrontal lobotomy, a grim testament to its brutal medical history. Prior to its near‑complete demolition, the abandoned halls were riddled with ghostly lights, eerie sounds, and a host of unexplained phenomena.

3 Pennhurst Asylum

Pennhurst Asylum began in 1908 as a school for the mentally and physically disabled, but quickly devolved into a nightmarish institution. A landmark federal class‑action lawsuit – Halderman v. Pennhurst State School & Hospital – exposed egregious violations of patients’ Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, ultimately establishing a constitutional right to appropriate care and education for the disabled.

Allegations of abuse at Pennhurst are chilling: patients were chained to walls, adult residents were forced into children’s cribs for days, and some were reportedly murdered when deemed problematic. High‑profile paranormal investigations have taken place on the grounds, and nearly every investigator reports at least one bone‑chilling encounter.

2 Rolling Hills Asylum

Located in the tiny hamlet of East Bethany, New York, Rolling Hills Asylum is perhaps the most infamous of all. The facility housed a grim mix of the mentally and physically disabled, criminals, the homeless, orphans, and widowed women – all labeled “inmates.” Official records list roughly 2,000 deaths, while many more are believed to lie in unmarked graves across the sprawling property.

The asylum boasts an extraordinary level of paranormal activity. The “Shadow Hallway” is reputed to be the most haunted corridor on the planet, with visitors reporting countless shadowy apparitions. Another well‑known specter is Roy Crouse, a towering 7‑foot‑5‑inch giant who lived and died on the grounds. Unlike many malevolent spirits, Roy is said to be a benevolent presence, watching over the site.

1 Waverly Hills Sanatorium

Waverly Hills Sanatorium originally opened as a modest school before being converted into a tuberculosis ward intended for just 40 patients. A devastating TB epidemic forced the facility to expand dramatically, eventually caring for more than 400 patients at its peak. Overcrowding, mistreatment, and rumors of illegal medical experiments plagued the institution, which is believed to have claimed anywhere between 20,000 and 63,000 lives.

The most infamous feature is the “body chute,” a subterranean tunnel designed to discreetly transport deceased patients away from the eyes of the living. This “death tunnel” has become a hotspot for paranormal investigators, but the entire complex is said to radiate intense spiritual activity. Waverly Hills has even earned the moniker “the most spiritually active place in the world,” a title well‑earned given its relentless hauntings.

While many movies have been set within asylums, the 10 movies filmed in real‑life institutions push the envelope of authenticity. Most productions never venture beyond a set, but the following list showcases those that chose actual hospitals to ground their stories, whether or not they got the treatment narrative right.

10 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Milos Forman’s adaptation of Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel sets the benchmark for more realistic depictions of asylum life. Filmed at Oregon’s Salem State Hospital (opened in 1883), it turns its setting into a power struggle between the autonomy and rights of the individual and the order and restrictions of the state. The free‑spirited individual is personified by Jack Nicholson’s new patient McMurphy, while Louise Fletcher’s Nurse Ratched represents the coldly oppressive state and its unbreakable assurance that it always knows what’s best.

Produced by Michael Douglas, his father Kirk had bought the rights to the book and played the role of McMurphy in an earlier stage version. He intended to play McMurphy again in the movie but was too old by the time the much‑delayed production began. The actors playing patients all slept in the ward used for filming, and real patients played extras seen around the asylum, as well as working as assistants during the shoot.

Shot on a tight budget, Nicholson took a percentage of profits for a reduced fee—a shrewd move as it became the fifth highest‑grossing movie ever (at the time), with Nicholson and Fletcher winning Best Actor and Actress Oscars. It also won Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

9 Doom Asylum (1987)

Richard Friedman’s horror takes us to the opposite end of the quality scale, one of many movies to treat the asylum setting as little more than a background to increase the creepiness of its lurid premise.

A former coroner is disfigured in a car accident and taken to an asylum where he lives in the basement after its closure, reappearing to stalk and kill the hapless teenagers who hang out in the abandoned building. The movie leans hard into its teen slasher vibe, presenting the stereotypical selection of geeky, goofy, sexy, and nerdy teens so beloved to rental horror fodder of the ’80s. One character wanders around the asylum in only a bikini, and a gang of faux punk rockers ensures it feels absolutely a product of its unique era.

The effects are gory and inventive in places, if never particularly convincing. Although many areas of the asylum (Essex Mountain Sanatorium in Verona, NJ, opened in 1907) used are bare and unremarkable, others are quite atmospheric, decayed, and littered with rusty old medical equipment. Ultimately, Doom Asylum succeeds in passing its own low bar of exceedingly silly, “popcorn” entertainment due to not taking itself remotely seriously.

8 Session 9 (2001)

Brad Anderson’s movie casts the asylum itself as both a key part of the story and as one of its core characters. In a perfect location coup, the production secured Massachusetts’s Danvers State Hospital (opened in 1878), felt by many to be among the most iconic asylums in the U.S. It closed in 1992 (the movie states 1985), and the immense Gothic building is shown looming beautiful and grandiose, imposing and malevolent, right from the opening scene.

Gordon (a compelling central performance by Peter Mullan) leads a small team pitching for the contract to remove asbestos from the old asylum, promising to get the job done on an unrealistically tight two‑week schedule. They encounter strange occurrences before one of the team goes missing, sowing seeds of suspicion and leading to increased pressure on Gordon, who appears to be gradually losing his grip on reality.

One team member finds a stash of old tape interviews with a patient who appears to be either mad or perhaps even possessed. These numbered “sessions” gradually lead up to a final, more malevolent persona being revealed in tape session no.9, hinting at a possible influence on the characters’ actions. Session 9 is a slow‑burning, cerebral work that only rarely relies on shock value to achieve its chills. The genuine abandoned asylum provides a rich, evocative setting, with its genuine history deftly woven in among the fiction, perhaps more effectively than in any other asylum‑set movie.

7 Girl, Interrupted (1999)

Winona Ryder bought the rights to Susanna Kaysen’s 1993 memoir, recruiting director James Mangold to film the 1960s‑set story in which she would star as a young woman diagnosed with personality disorder and committed to an asylum.

Reimagined as Claymoore Hospital, the movie was actually shot at Harrisburg State Hospital in Pennsylvania, which opened in 1851 and closed in 2006. Great use is made of the authentic setting, dressed to look much as it would have during the era depicted.

While individual characters conveniently fit into some of the stereotypes associated with asylum patients, the film’s setting and autobiographical origins lend it extra authenticity. It stands as a rare attempt to humanize rather than exaggerate and exploit the behavior and illnesses of its patients.

6 Grave Encounters (2011)

A team of fake paranormal investigators spends the night in an abandoned asylum for a supernatural TV show in Colin and Stuart Ortiz’s debut. While “found‑footage” horrors are ten‑a‑penny and ones set in asylums plentiful, Grave Encounters succeeds in providing uncomplicated shocks with a tight story, creepy visuals, and contemptible characters who gradually become more sympathetic as the terror of their situation sinks in.

We are shown the usual trickery of such shows, such as the cast arriving and immediately bribing a groundskeeper to pretend to have seen a ghost, wiring up doors to slam shut, and pretending to scream and jump at conveniently unseen apparitions. The premise for their show is that they will be locked inside the asylum overnight, and eventually, of course, increasingly strange things start to happen for real. While it doesn’t have anything to say about mental health, and the usual cliches are present, it does create an increasingly nightmarish scenario. Even the building itself appears to conspire against the team’s escape.

The asylum is referred to as Collingwood in Maryland, USA, but filming took place at Riverview Asylum in Coquitlam, Canada, which opened in 1913. Filming took place in disused areas, but it had not been empty long, hence the rather bland, modernized look, with little of the usual decay or damage. The found‑footage approach and darkened hallways still conspire to create a creepy and claustrophobic atmosphere despite the lackluster setting.

5 Shutter Island (2010)

Martin Scorsese’s movie was adapted from the 2003 novel by Dennis Lehane and sits somewhere between horror, psychological thriller, and police procedural. Two U.S. Marshals head out to Shutter Island (an anagram of “truths and lies”), dominated by the high‑security Ashecliffe psychiatric hospital, to track down a murderous escaped patient but find they have unexpected personal links to the mysterious institution.

In reality, no asylum ever existed within the grounds of a war fortification. Still, the areas of the asylum itself are depicted accurately both inside and out, including details such as the grounds and solariums. Many external shots were composed at Medfield State Hospital in Massachusetts, which opened in 1896, and were composited with other locations and CGI to create the fictional asylum.

4 The Dead Pit (1989)

An exploitative horror shocker by Brett Leonard (who later directed The Lawnmower Man), this sees a stereotypical “mad doctor” psychiatrist who experiments on his patients in the asylum’s basement killed by another doctor who then seals him and his remaining patients in the basement. Twenty years later, a new patient suffering from amnesia is admitted and inexplicably triggers an earthquake that cracks open the old basement, allowing the now‑revived mad doctor and his slavering, zombie‑like patients to run riot across the facility.

While many external scenes were filmed elsewhere, the idiosyncratic clock tower and many internal scenes were shot at the former high‑security wing of Agnew State Hospital in Milpitas, CA (opened in 1906), lending the movie its only elements of credibility. Its representation of asylum routine largely consists of the typical aggressive dosing‑up and fetishized hosing‑down of eccentrically depicted patients.

The day room where several scenes are shot was the same one used for Green Day’s 1994 “Basket Case” video.

3 Asylum (2005)

The author Patrick McGrath grew up in the long shadow of Broadmoor Criminal Asylum in Berkshire, UK, where his father was the Medical Superintendent, and mental illness is often worked into his books in some way. This is an adaptation of his 1996 novel of the same name.

The asylum featured is High Royds, at Menston, West Yorkshire, which opened in 1888 and only fully closed just two years before filming began. However, having been gradually disused over many years, the grounds and interiors were already somewhat overgrown and shabby. Filming during the fall, plants were spray‑painted green to make it look more like the intended summer setting. High Royds was among the most spectacular and imposing of all British asylums. However, the interiors were modified slightly to appear more like an asylum for criminals (which it was not), including adding a barred iron gate to one of the corridors.

The movie stars Natasha Richardson, Marton Csokas, and Ian McKellen and addresses mental health, jealousy, adultery, and passion, albeit in a somewhat melodramatic and old‑fashioned manner.

2 The Professor and the Madman (2019)

Sean Penn stars as William Minor, who was committed to Broadmoor Criminal Asylum in Berkshire, UK, in 1872 after shooting dead a man that his mental health problems had caused him to believe was stalking him. While in the asylum, Minor contributed more than any other single author to providing definitions for what would become the first Oxford English Dictionary.

While Farhad Safinia’s movie uses two buildings to double as Broadmoor, St. Ita’s Asylum in Ireland is used for the majority of the interior and exterior shots. The huge building spans a staggering 1,630 feet (497 meters) and was the largest building project of any type built in Ireland while under British jurisdiction. It opened as the Dublin District Asylum in 1903 and closed to patients in 2017.

1 Titicut Follies (1967)

Of all the films on this list, Frederick Wiseman’s documentary on Massachusetts’s Bridgewater State Prison for the Criminally Insane may be the most horrifying and upsetting of all, as it is entirely real. His camera wanders the cells, corridors, surgeries, and grounds and often simply observes, occasionally allowing for interviews. It is an enthralling and appalling deep dive into both the minds, illnesses, and acts of the people incarcerated there and those of the staff, institutions, and wider society who felt this environment was a suitable place for human beings.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts had the film banned outright, and it could only be legally shown to audiences composed of students and medical or legal practitioners until as late as 1992. The reason given was an “invasion of privacy” to those being filmed. However, many believed that the appalling scenes depicted and their reflection on the state’s provision were the primary motive.

Screened to the cast before filming began on several movies on this list, Wiseman’s passive camera and interviews allow patients and staff to speak largely unguided, staff often unwittingly damning themselves by their own uninterested attitudes to their work. Little vignettes tell sad or upsetting stories, such as the doctor who can’t be bothered to put his cigarette out even when force‑feeding a patient on camera, dropping his ash down the tube. These images provide unvarnished insight into a broken and dysfunctional system from which meaningful rehabilitation seems almost impossible.

The 1845 County Asylums Act made it mandatory for every county in England and Wales to build at least one asylum large enough to contain its “pauper lunatics”—the official term used for those too poor to afford private care.

Soon after, over 130 immense buildings appeared across Britain, housing between 350 and 3,500 patients each. As their gothic towers loomed from secluded hilltops, the terrifying notion of the lunatic asylum lodged itself in the public imagination forever.

While they deserve their reputation for the very real horrors inflicted on tens of thousands of patients, either through direct abuse or the many horrific and ultimately discredited “cures” used in asylums at one time or another , this list attempts to show that not everything about them was negative. It will also reveal how rumor, imagination, and popular fiction still stoke misconceptions that make their legend appear even darker.

10 Committal

While many believe that an “inconvenient” family member or spurned lover could be locked up in an asylum almost on a whim, this was not the case, by Victorian times at least.

The County Asylums Act saw standardized regulations applied to all buildings housing patients. All were regularly inspected by the Lunacy Commissioners to check adherence to the legislation and minimum standards of food, exercise, entertainment, etc. However, inspections were made without notice and not considered complete until they had seen or accounted for every single patient in the case files.

The asylums were always overcrowded, and those who ran the building understood overcrowding was bad for the “recovery rates” they would have to publicize each year. As a result, those who paid for the asylums and those inspecting them were not keen to allow people to be taken in and be clothed, fed, and managed purely because some family member had dumped them at their door, claiming they were insane.^[1]

9 Padded Cells

Little evokes the horror of the asylum quite like the padded cell. Popular fiction and film, in particular, present them as the ultimate embodiment of a human life discarded and left to suffer in terrifyingly absolute isolation. However, they were created as a solution to a far worse problem.

“Mechanical restraints” have been used to prevent patients from harming themselves or others since the earliest days of the asylums. Manacles held hands and feet together, and brutal strait jackets, leather harnesses, or chains bound patients to chairs or beds. Eventually, pioneering superintendents such as Dr. Robert Gardiner-Hill and Dr. John Connolly rejected the medical thinking of their day and began reducing their use, having padded cells fitted instead.

Although open to abuse or misuse, they served the same function but with far less risk to patients and staff—both often injured as patients were wrestled into awkward mechanical restraints in the past. The padded cells were introduced because they were believed to be safer, more dignified, and generally more humane than what preceded them.^[2]

8 Alcohol

Alcohol may not seem an obvious substance to introduce into a lunatic asylum, but all would have kept “medicinal” spirits such as brandy in locked cupboards. And up until the 1880s, many even had their own breweries. For example, at Bedlam, the corridors contained pipes with taps on them, and each attendant working there had a special key so they could pour themselves a glass whenever they wished.

Beer was viewed differently in the past and seen as a food supplement and a way of providing something safe to drink when clean water was harder to come by. Generally speaking, it would be a weak ale at only 2-3% alcohol and served with meals, so it wasn’t intended to get anyone tipsy. Male patients who worked on the asylums’ farms were often given a pint of beer with their evening meal. It was phased out in the 1880s as asylums began increasingly treating mental health problems believed to have been caused or exacerbated by alcohol.^[3]

7 Pregnancy

Perhaps the most commonly-repeated story regarding committal to an asylum is that of the young girl or unmarried woman who finds herself there due to pregnancy. As noted in the first entry, by the 1840s, all asylums were subject to scrutiny by the Lunacy Commissioners, and reasons for admittance had to be documented and justifiable.

Pregnancy outside marriage was certainly a taboo topic in Victorian society. Still, the workhouses, orphanages, and the Poor Law schools were set up to cater to people in such a position. Birth outside wedlock was not a category for certification as a lunatic. Doing so would have required the collusion of a doctor, a judge, the committee, and the staff at the asylum.

However, pregnancy was listed as a potential cause of madness, so in combination with the thinking of the time (and based on many unconfirmed testimonies), prejudiced doctors may have assumed that any girl or woman must surely be mad to have become pregnant before marriage. Those with money may indeed have been able to pull a few strings and grease a few palms to have a “shameful” family secret quietly disposed of in a private asylum.^[4]

6 Secret Tunnels

Many county asylums are said to have had “secret” tunnels running underneath them, built to provide a hidden entrance away from public view. At London’s Colney Hatch Asylum, for example, a tunnel ran between the railway station and the asylum, rumored to have been used to bring in members of the royal family, politicians, or other VIPs in secret if they had some sort of mental breakdown.

In truth, all would have been built for more disappointingly mundane reasons, such as bringing in or moving around supplies that needed to be kept dry. Also, county asylums were designed for paupers, and anyone well-off enough to need to be hidden from the public would have sought more discreet private treatment elsewhere.^[5]

5 Broadmoor

Broadmoor is often referred to as a “prison” due to the horrific acts committed by many who have resided there over the decades. However, although it has gone by various names over the years, it has always been a high-security psychiatric institution and never a prison.

Opening in 1863 as “Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum,” it took all of the criminal lunatic patients formerly housed at Bedlam in central London. The M’Naghten trial of 1843 eventually led to laws that essentially meant a person could be either a criminal (responsible for their actions) or a lunatic (unable at the time of the offense to fully understand or control their actions) but not both at once. So the “criminal” component of the name was later dropped. Strangely, Britain’s second such institution opened as “Rampton Criminal Lunatic Asylum” decades later in 1912, giving more insight into how unclear legislation relating to crime and insanity has traditionally been.

Broadmoor has housed many of Britain’s most notorious law-breakers, including the “Moors murderer” Ian Brady, the “Yorkshire Ripper” Peter Sutcliffe, and two patients incidentally both portrayed on film by the actor Tom Hardy. These include London gangster Ronnie Kray in Legend (2015), and Charles Bronson, dubbed “the most violent prisoner in Britain,” in Bronson (2008).^[6]

4 Labor

The county asylums were planned to be as self-sufficient as possible, producing most of their own food, completing their own laundry, providing most of their own services and amenities, and making or repairing the buildings themselves and the clothing patients wore. It is often assumed this was “forced labor,” tantamount to slavery, but although it was certainly strongly encouraged, forcing the patients to work was not legal.

Men tended to be allocated to work on the grounds and landscaping, farms, and occupations such as woodworking, boot and shoe-making, painting and decorating, etc. In keeping with the notions of the time, women were usually given domestic roles such as needlework and hair-picking (for mattresses), along with work in the laundries and kitchens.

While some patients saw it as a chore, rewards of extra food, alcohol, tobacco, or even money were usually offered as incentives, and some patients enjoyed their roles. Patients even participated in building parts of the asylum, including some beautiful chapels constructed with completely willing patient labor.

While their massive in-situ workforce conveniently kept running costs down, it was also genuinely seen as beneficial to the patients, as idleness was viewed as being detrimental to both their recovery and general well-being.^[7]

3 Cells

Film and other media favor images of patients perpetually locked up in dark, dank cells unless being dragged off for some arcane medical experiment or torturous therapy.

By Victorian times, most patients slept in dormitories with as many as fifty other patients. Some were given individual cells, usually because they could not be trusted during the night. But in the daytime, all patients were moved into the day-rooms, verandahs, courtyards or gardens, or out to work.

It was not permitted to keep patients locked in cells for extended periods without documenting exactly how long they had been kept there and for what reasons. Since an attendant or nurse had to be constantly posted outside any cell where a patient was kept during the day, it was not something the asylum’s management wanted to do any more than they (rightly or wrongly) believed they had to.^[8]

2 Clock Towers

The clocktower is another pervading and often chilling image of the Victorian lunatic asylum. These ornate but austere Gothic constructions, some as tall as 140 feet (42 meters), appear to survey the surrounding landscape, inevitably stoking speculation about exactly what unseen horrors might exist beneath them.

Most were actually water towers, with the clock added as a convenient secondary function. Water towers drew from deep wells, and some had filtration to provide cleaner water, but the main reason they were introduced to most asylums from the 1860s onward was to fight fires. In the days before motorized fire engines, and bearing in mind most asylums were located some distance from towns and cities, the tower had to be tall enough so that an attached hose would offer enough pressure to project a jet of water up to the highest floors of the building.^[9]

1 Patients

Even without considering what any given patient may have suffered due to their particular mental illness, it is almost universally accepted that no patient would ever want to be locked in an asylum. Who would?

However, there are many reports spread throughout history (going back as far as Bedlam in the 17th century) of patients who begged not to be discharged or to be allowed to return. While institutionalization sometimes played a role here (the person had been in some institution so long, it becomes unthinkable to live outside it), the appalling conditions for the poor outside the asylum from Medieval times until even as late as the 1970s in some cases are also telling.

For all its restrictions and regimens, the asylum offered three square meals a day, a clean bed and clothing, and many luxuries we would now take for granted, such as indoor toilets, bathing facilities, lighting, and central heating. Some patients even left the asylums cured and went on to lead happy and fulfilling lives because of or despite their time there.

Two other things many former patients also expressed their appreciation for were the beautiful grounds in which they could escape the trappings and pressures of daily life. And perhaps above all else, a community of people who understood them and were therefore far less judgemental than many of those outside, something often so lacking to those suffering from mental health problems today.^[10]

What kind of people ended up in a lunatic asylum? Melancholy teenagers? Violent criminals? Unmarried mothers?

Most of the hundreds of thousands of patients in the dark days of the “madhouses” were unknown paupers and not remembered. Occasionally though, throughout history, certain patients have been rather more well-known.

Here are ten examples of the somewhat famous, very famous, and downright infamous locked away in an asylum.

10 King George III

England’s King George III reigned from 1760 until his death in 1820 and suffered severe mental health problems at times. Although causing occasional mockery, the idea that even a king could suffer from madness also generated increased sympathy toward other sufferers.

He became prone to ranting, convulsions, erratic behavior, and depression and was taken to the private Greatford House Asylum in Lincolnshire. His treatment there would have been typical of its time—painful and completely ineffectual—including bleeding, induced vomiting, and blistering of the skin with hot glass vials.

While historians often suggest his condition may have been a genetic blood disorder called porphyria rather than madness, recent studies by London’s St. George’s University suggest it was most likely a mental health problem, possibly bipolar disorder, which afflicted the king.^[1]

9 Ronnie Kray

Ronald “Ronnie” Kray was one-half of the notorious “Kray Twins,” born in East London in 1933. With his brother Reginald “Reggie” Kray, the identical twins ruled London’s gangland during the 1950s and 60s, glamorizing it with their penchant for stylish suits, celebrity parties, and brutal violence.

Imprisoned in 1956 and separated from his beloved brother, Ronnie’s already ailing mental health deteriorated further. In 1957, he was committed to one of the secure wards at Long Grove Asylum in Surrey, where he was so unwell he formed a relationship with a radiator and believed another patient to be a dog.

An audacious plan was hatched to break him out—Reggie and his entourage visited, with Reggie dressing as similarly as possible to Ronnie. Meeting in the bathroom, Ronnie handed his distinctive black-rimmed glasses to Reggie before the two returned. Ronnie walked out with the others as Reggie remained, staff, assuming Reggie was Ronnie while his brother made good his escape. Shortly, Reggie took off his brother’s glasses and signed out, leaving unchallenged to join the others back in London.

Both received life sentences for murder in 1969, with Ronnie being transferred to Broadmoor Asylum in 1979, where he would remain until his death in 1995.^[2]

8 Louis Wain

Born in 1860, Louis Wain drew for newspapers and magazines in the 1880s to support his mother and five sisters after his father’s death. His greatest success came when he began drawing stylized cartoons of cats engaged in human-like activities, bringing him modest fame and fortune.

When his wife and love Emily died of cancer three years into marriage, his mental state deteriorated, while his cats began to take increasingly bizarre form. He also made a series of incredible futurist pottery figures during this time.

Increasingly ill, his trusting nature saw him swindled out of most of his money and eventually admitted to Springfield Asylum in London as a pauper in 1924. Discovered there a year later, a fundraising campaign (endorsed by the likes of War of the Worlds author H.G. Wells) was organized. Wain was moved to the more comfortable Bethlem Royal in Kent and then Napsbury Asylum, where he continued to paint stunning, psychedelic images of cats until he died in 1939.^[3]

7 Vincent Van Gogh

Van Gogh admitted himself to the asylum of St. Paul de Mausole in Saint Remy, France, in 1889. He had two rooms there—one to sleep in and another to use as his studio. Although the regime was not deliberately harsh, he received only meager food and water, his “treatment” consisting only of bathing. Eventually, he was allowed to wander the picturesque gardens, then finally, the fields beyond. He would paint many images of the asylum and its surroundings while there.

His shift to darker colors during his time at the asylum led to Starry Night, one of his most famous and evocative works created there.^[4]

6 Margaret Nicholson

Margaret Nicholson lost several prestigious housekeeping jobs due to scandalous affairs with other employees, eventually struggling to eke out a living as a seamstress. She developed a fixation on the royal family, believing she should be queen. In 1776, she was injudiciously allowed to approach King George III when she whipped out a knife and lunged at him. The king was unharmed—she made her assassination attempt wielding only a blunt cake knife.

Nicholson then suffered the indignity of being strip-searched to confirm she was not, in fact, a man. After stating, “England would be drowned in blood for a thousand generations” if she wasn’t queen, she was declared mad, escaping almost certain execution and being sent to Bedlam asylum instead. King George wrote to say she should be given sympathetic treatment while there.

Nicholson received many well-to-do guests who brought her gifts and were keen to meet the “celebrity madwoman.” She remained in Bedlam until her death at age 83.^[5]

5 John Clare

Born in 1793, Clare lived in the small village of Helpston, UK, working as a “potboy” at The Blue Bell Inn. He sold poetry to stave off his parents’ eviction, meeting with quick success and early recognition.

When his last collection, The Rural Muse (1835), gained praise but poor sales, his existing mental problems and alcoholism intensified. After attacking an actor on stage, he was advised to attend High Beach Asylum in Essex and said to have believed he was Lord Byron and had two wives, one of whom was his first love Mary who died three years earlier. Missing his family, he left and walked the 80-mile (130-kilometer) journey back home alone.

In 1841, he was admitted to St. Andrew’s Asylum in Northampton as a pauper, where he was encouraged to continue writing and produced his most famous work, “I Am.” He would remain in the asylum until his death in 1864. In obscurity by that time, his work was reappraised over the following century, and he is now among Britain’s most highly-regarded poets.^[6]

4 Richard Dadd

Richard Dadd was a talented young painter recruited to accompany a grand tour of Europe and Asia, providing sketches and paintings of the trip as was fashionable among the wealthy of the time. In Egypt, he suffered intense headaches and sunstroke, believing he could hear the voice of the sun god Osiris. When the expedition reached Paris in 1843, his behavior had become so odd he was dismissed.

At London’s St. Luke’s Asylum, he was diagnosed insane, but his father was reluctant to commit him and took him home instead. Osiris urged him to battle the devil, and Dadd began to see Satan in everyone around him. He withdrew to his rooms, living only on ale and hard-boiled eggs.

Dadd’s father asked him to “unburden his mind,” taking him for a meal and walk on a local heath, where Richard stabbed his father to death. Tragically, he planned the attack believing his father was the devil in disguise. His rooms were searched, with police discovering drawings of friends and relatives with their throats cut. Dadd fled to Calais intent on killing the Emperor of Austria, but after attempting to kill a fellow passenger, he was arrested and committed to Clermont Asylum at Fontainebleau. Confessing to murder, he was then extradited to England.

Dadd was committed to Bedlam and then moved to Broadmoor Asylum, where he produced many of his most celebrated works, including The Fairy-Feller’s Masterstroke (1864). He would eventually die in 1886. His works, now worth millions, can be seen at The National Gallery and the Tate Gallery, among others.^[7]

3 James Tilley Matthews

Matthews was, by day, a mild-mannered London tea seller but had a remarkable alter-ego. In Revolutionary France, he worked brokering peace between England and the new Republican leadership. When those he supported failed to gain power, he was arrested, accused of being a spy, and imprisoned. Eventually liberated, he claimed the English government had abandoned him to the French and that the Home Secretary was at the heart of a series of conspiracies. His wild and often very public talk about having been a Scarlet Pimpernel-esque double-agent saw him committed to Bedlam asylum in 1798.

Two doctors certified Matthews sane, but Lord Liverpool stated he was “a dangerous lunatic who should be confined in perpetuity,” backed by Bedlam’s apothecary, John Haslam, who studied Matthews for his book Illustrations of Madness (1810). Many consider this to be the first case study of paranoid schizophrenia.

Matthews believed a criminal gang constantly interfered with his mind through “pneumatic chemistry,” using magnetic waves from their “air loom” device. This would inflict on him such pains as “lobster-cracking,” which made his circulation stop, and “apoplexy-working with the nutmeg-grater,” which tracked his thoughts and movements. Haslam’s book is still used to show the terrifying thoughts and conspiracies which can be typical of schizophrenia.

Subsequent research suggests Matthews had indeed been in France unofficially backed by the British government, keen to see the “correct” people end up in power. These “invisible forces” then denied all knowledge of Matthews upon capture and maintained a wall of silence upon his return, suggesting his illness may not have been the only factor ensuring he remained conveniently locked away in an asylum for good.^[8]

2 Nellie Bly

Elizabeth Seaman (1864-1922) was a journalist born in Pennsylvania, better known by her pen name Nellie Bly. She is most famous for two particular journalistic endeavors, the second of which was traveling around the world in just seventy-two days (a world record at that time) in emulation of the famous book by Jules Verne.

She first made waves in 1887 with an undercover exposé of life in a lunatic asylum. Taking up residence in a women’s boarding house, she tried to act as strangely as she could but found such behavior was so common there as to be barely noticed. Eventually escalating until she began to scare the other residents and the police were called, she was finally committed to New York’s Blackwell’s Island Asylum for women.

Once inside, her task was to appear as “normal” as she possibly could, to see how she would be treated knowing she was sane and exhibiting no unusual behavior. Her subsequent exposé, “Ten Days in a Madhouse,” hinged on how difficult she would then find it to be taken seriously or affect her release despite her obvious sanity and the appalling conditions experienced by the other women incarcerated there. She was unable to convince anyone, and the newspaper she worked for eventually had to contact the asylum to arrange for her release.^[9]

1 Jack the Ripper

While the true identity of the world’s first celebrity serial killer has never been proven, several suspects ended up in asylums. One Aaron Kosminski was even named as a prime suspect by two of the case’s key investigating police officers.

Some believe Kosminski may have been mixed up with another patient named Nathan Kaminsky, who had been arrested in Whitechapel in December 1888, at which time the murders abruptly stopped. This would explain why Kosminski did not at all fit the description of a killer when he was visited by the investigating officers and essentially suggests that the asylum brought them the wrong suspect to see.

On the other hand, Kaminsky was apprehended in a state of severe aggression less than a month after the final killing, after which he attacked anyone he could at the asylum and had to be kept in restraints. While it will likely remain only a theory, it is a fascinating potential explanation of the demise of the world’s most notorious serial killer—the killings stopped because he was locked up in London’s Colney Hatch Asylum.^[10]

The Victorian era saw hundreds of vast buildings spring up across the UK, Europe, and North America as governments sought to address the “epidemic” of madness that appeared to be growing in lockstep with the industrialization of the western world. The agreed solution was to build immense institutions run under strict regimes and isolated from the rest of the community.

Urban sprawl eventually surrounded many of the old asylums. By the 1960s, it was decided they would need to be wound down and closed, “releasing” their patients back into the community whether appropriate housing and care had been arranged for them or not.

While scant consideration was given to patients, alternate uses for the buildings themselves were rarely considered either. So hundreds of well-built, often astoundingly beautiful, historic structures were left to rot and face eventual demolition. Here is a handful of those that found other fates besides the wrecking ball.

10 Royal Bethlem, London

The original Bethlehem Priory was founded in Bishopsgate in 1247 and used to house “mad” patients since as early as 1377. A brand new version of the institution (by then commonly known as “Bedlam” was built at Moorfields in 1676 and designed by the eminent scientist and architect (as well as great rival of Sir Isaac Newton) Robert Hooke (1635–1703).

The third version, known as “Royal Bethlem,” opened at Southwark in 1815 and was the largest of all, housing up to 425 patients at any one time. It also initially confined all of Britain’s “criminal lunatics.” Bedlam was notorious throughout its history as a place of cruelty and suffering, although by the 1860s, it had begun housing only fee-paying middle-class patients.

Today: Closing in 1930, the former “lunatic palace” is—with unavoidable irony—now the London home of the Imperial War Museum, documenting the history of warfare and conflict, which typifies mankind’s madness at its most extreme and destructive.^[1]

9 Claybury, Essex

Built as the Fourth London County Asylum at Woodford, Essex, Claybury was the largest of all British asylums in terms of its overall footprint. It housed around 2,740 patients at its peak.

It was designed by George T. Hine (1842–1916), who was responsible for the building of more asylums than any other architect; he exclusively created asylums for the whole of his career. Fifteen across the UK are attributed to him, with extensions or additions made to five more.

Today: This immense building, which was once secured and surrounded by railings to keep its pauper patients inside, closed in 1997 and is now a gated community. Its wards are now converted to housing, its chapel is now a swimming pool, and its lavish recreation hall is now a gym. It is among the most desirable locations on the outskirts of London and, besides the still rather exclusive gym, is closed off to the public, meaning that these days, the paupers are all locked outside its grounds instead.^[2]

8 Traverse City, Michigan

This third asylum for Michigan opened in 1885. It quickly became the city’s largest employer, growing to encompass over 1,400,000 square feet (130,064 square meters) of floor space with around 3,000 patients in residence by 1959.

Its first medical superintendent, Dr. James Munson (1848–1902), oversaw the asylum’s regime for its first 39 years (retiring at the age of 76). He believed that the patients being within beautiful surroundings with plenty to keep them occupied was the key to wellbeing and recovery. He also abolished the use of straitjackets and other forms of restraint.

Today: Frustratingly, the asylum’s beautiful Italiante central block—the most handsome part—was allowed to fall into disrepair and be demolished in 1963, while the remainder closed in 1989. A $60,000,000 redevelopment program began in 2000, with the remaining 1880s buildings and extensive grounds renovated to a mix of residential, shopping, catering, hotel, and conference facilities.^[3]

7 The Lawn, Lincoln

The Lincoln Lunatic Asylum, later the Lawn, was a charitable public asylum that opened in 1820 at the center of the ancient town, next to its huge castle and overlooked by its cathedral. When the church’s main tower was completed in 1311, it was the only structure in the world taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The Lawn took patients on a charitable basis, meaning most did not have to pay at all. It had a good reputation, inspired by its first visiting medical physician, Dr. Edward Parker Charlesworth (1783–1853). Charlesworth insisted that mechanical restraints (bindings, cuffs, straitjackets, etc.) were abolished and that violence and physical coercion should never be used upon the patients, which was then a controversial approach.

Today: The Lawn closed in 1982 and was later used by the local council. It is now a conference center and coffee shop, with its grounds open as a public park.^[4]

6 Mapperley, Nottingham

Nottingham was progressive during Georgian times when medicine for the poor was usually left to unqualified quacks and questionable herbal remedies. It built its general public hospital as early as 1781 and opened the very first of Britain’s “county asylums” at Sneinton in 1812.

As its first asylum became grossly overcrowded, middle-class patients were moved to new accommodations at The Coppice in 1859. However, as Nottingham continued to grow into a large industrial city, Sneinton again became overcrowded, with the much larger Mapperley Asylum eventually built in 1880. This, too, was full by the end of its first year and soon expanded.

During the 1950s, Mapperley’s superintendent, Dr. Duncan MacMillan, reclassified all the chronic (long-term) patients as “voluntary.” Instead of assuming rehabilitation for them was impossible, as was the case at most asylums, he encouraged confidence-building and their integration back into society. No new patients were allowed to be shut away in the dingy old chronic wards, and the doors to all wards were gradually kept unlocked.

Today: Closing in 1994, half of the old buildings are now converted to luxury housing, while the northern side is still in NHS use as the University of Nottingham Medical School. There is also a large medium-security forensic unit built within the grounds.^[5]

5 Matteawan State Hospital, Beacon, NY

Located in pleasant surroundings between the Hudson River and Fishkill Mountains, Matteawan opened in 1892 and catered for various classes of mental health problems. It also incorporated a significant quota of those then labeled as “criminally insane.”

Its most famous patient to fall under that category was George Metesky, aka the “Mad Bomber.” He terrorized New York with homemade explosives planted in public locations from the 1940s until his arrest in 1957. Perhaps surprisingly, he was released just sixteen years later, in 1973.

Today: The role of Matteawan evolved from the 1970s into what is now Fishkill Correctional Facility, which still uses the old asylum buildings to house a mix of high-security and medium-security psychiatric patients. It also operates a minimum security work-release program for those undergoing rehabilitation.^[6]

4 Royal Albert Idiot Asylum, Lancaster

The first “idiot asylum” was founded in Surrey by John Langdon Down (1828–1896), who first described the syndrome that now bears his name. It was then formally known as “idiocy.” Langdon Down created an asylum designed to house, educate, and support people with learning differences to live productive lives beyond its walls.

Similar institutions appeared in the west, east, and midlands of England, and Royal Albert was originally known as the Northern Counties Idiot Asylum, designed in an extravagant Flemish style in 1870. It would initially house 500 children between six and fifteen years of age for up to seven years each before they were “ready” to use their skills in the outside world.

These high ideals were gradually lost over time; by 1948, its population had swelled to over 800, 35% of whom were aged over thirty-five and considered long-stay cases.

Today: The building closed in 1996 and was converted to the Jamea Al Kauthar Islamic College, a private Islamic boarding school for girls aged eleven to eighteen.^[7]

3 Buffalo State Hospital, NY

Buffalo State hospital opened in 1880 and was designed by Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886), who went on to be widely regarded as the first American architect to achieve international renown. It was designed in the Kirkbride style, which saw staggered sets of ward blocks spreading out from the central administrative block rather like the wings of a bird in flight.

Buffalo was arguably the most impressive of all the American asylums, with its incredibly imposing gothic towers looming down from the enormous central block like something from a dark fairytale.

Today: Despite the addition to the State and National Registers of Historic Places in 1973 and designated an official National Historic Landmark in 1986 (one of only seven in Western New York), it sat empty and neglected for years. A lawsuit eventually forced state authorities into proactively pursuing its renovation. The Hotel Henry (named after its architect) occupied the central third of the complex but closed in 2021 but fortunately reopened as The Richardson Hotel. Tours are available of the remaining abandoned areas of the old asylum, with an expectation they will eventually become apartments and offices.^[8]

2 Glenside, Somerset

Glenside opened in 1861 as the Bristol City Lunatic Asylum, built to a corridor-pavilion layout typical of its time.

Its first departure from psychiatric use was during WWI when it became the Beaufort War Hospital. During the war, 29,434 wounded soldiers were treated there, while all its psychiatric patients were sent home or decanted into other asylums. When the patients returned in 1919, they included one Elsie Leach, mother of the actor Cary Grant.

Today: The buildings were modernized and converted into residence halls and training areas for the UWE Faculty of Health and Social Care, with its grand recreation hall, adapted into a cafeteria. It is a rare example of a former hospital building finding a genuinely fitting new use that makes the best of the existing buildings rather than lazy demolition and/or partial conversion to housing. The former chapel now hosts a museum packed with information and objects about Glenside’s long history as an asylum and war hospital.^[9]

1 Gheel, Belgium

Dymphna was born in Ireland to a wealthy family in the 7th century and sunk into depression after the death of her mother. Her father mourned, too, his advisers eventually suggesting he remarry to overcome his pain. He sent emissaries across Europe, who returned claiming they could find none so delightful and suitable as… his own daughter, Dymphna.

Unsurprisingly horrified, she fled to the continent, accompanied by a priest, the court jester, and his wife. They traveled to Antwerp in modern-day Belgium and settled in the small village of Gheel. Dymphna’s father pursued her and executed the priest when he tried to defend her, and when she continued to resist, he murdered Dymphna, his own fifteen-year-old daughter. She was martyred, becoming Saint Dymphna in around AD 650.

Miracles and cures were said to occur for those suffering from mental health problems who visited Gheel, and so St. Dymphna became the patron saint of the mad, with increasing numbers then brought to the village by friends and relatives. At first, patients were housed in a small asylum building attached to the church built in St Dymphna’s honor. But they were eventually accommodated in the homes of ordinary families living in Gheel.

Today: Remarkably, although the original buildings are gone, the system at Geel (formerly Gheel) remains very similar to this day. While most other western countries (including the rest of Belgium) adopted a similar model of placing patients in vast out-of-town institutions away from the general populace, Gheel families continue to provide similar care to patients with mental disorders. Some families have been doing so for many generations, and it has become as normal and accepted as any other practice handed down through a family line.^[10]