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Glenside Hospital Museum

Image credit: Roger Templeman , CC BY SA 2.0 (source: Geograph)

Visit by appointment

Museum or gallery in Bristol

9 artworks

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Glenside Hospital Museum was founded by Dr Donal Felix Mary Early, a consultant psychiatrist who worked at Glenside Hospital from 1944 to 1979. Dr Early, along with Dennis Griffiths and volunteers, began collecting artefacts during this time and placing them into storage. After some time, the hospital granted the Museum the use of the balcony overlooking the dining hall at Glenside. The collection gradually built up, as people donated artefacts. When the Hospital closed in 1994, the use of the derelict chapel was given to the Museum. The chapel was in a very poor state of disrepair, all of the stained glass windows were boarded up and the interior had become home to pigeons and squirrels. The volunteers set to work scrubbing the floors, removing the pews and taking down the boards from the windows so that they could be seen once again. The museum gradually developed with Dr Early as the guiding light, forming the exhibits and telling the story of the Hospital. The volunteers were saddened when Dr Early was robbed of his power of speech due to a stroke. With the help of Dr Peter Carpenter, Dr Early's dream of publishing a book depicting the history of Glenside Hospital was finally realised shortly before his death in 2004. The 'Lunatic Pauper Palace' is on sale in the Museum as well as on its website. The Museum has a wide range of artifacts and images from the life of Glenside and of the local Learning Disability Hospitals of the Stoke Park Group and the Burden Neurological Institution.

University of the West of England, Glenside Campus, Blackberry Hill , Stapleton, Bristol, Bristol BS16 1DD England

glensidemuseum@hotmail.com

0117 965 2829

Before making a visit, check opening hours with the venue

http://www.glensidemuseum.org.uk/