Claybury Memories.
Both my parents were nurses at Claybury during the 1950s. My dad worked days and my mum worked nights. I can remember her telling me that when she did 'the rounds' during the night she used to ride her bike through the dark corridors crunching over cockroaches! Dad was umpire for the Clabury cricket team and my brother and I spent many a warm sunny Sunday playing in the grounds of the hospital while Mum sat in her deck chair knitting and watching the cricket. I never had the opportunity to see inside the hospital but I was always intrigued by the big tower. I think it was a water tower. The Claybury I remember was much bigger than the picture shown, it had impressive gates with lodge houses on each side. As children, my brother and I and all our friends would go to Toms Wood to pick blackberries, we were always on the look out for 'escaped patients' and imagined anybody we saw was an inmate! Many a full bowl of blackberries was lost in our haste to run home!
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RE: RE: Claybury Memories.
You're right, Hilary: it was a water tower, and I was one of the few people privileged enough to climb its stairs to admire the astonishing view from the top. (I think we had to go through the kitchens to enter the tower.) At the time - the mid 1980s - I was working at the hospital with the adminstrator's son; and it was our task to move hundreds of the hospital files from one section on the hospital to another. Some of the books containing these records were huge, showing details of all the many people - men, women and children - who were admitted to the hospital over the years. Photographs of some of the Victorian patients (often seated in front of a mirror, if I recall correctly) were particulary poignant. (As far as I know, these records were ultimately moved to Ilford Library upon the hospital's closure.) Incredibly, Claybury Hospital also had its own bank, chapel, and a beautiful old music hall - a real community within. There was also a huge network of tunnels beneath the hospital, which we also got access to, courtesy of the administrator and a pal of mine who also worked in the admin department - and infact, got me the work. What an experience! As you probably know, the place is now a nouveau riche housing estate. But the ghosts of Claybury linger on.... Indeed, if you care to log on to You Tube, you will find a gothic ghost tale featuring extensive footage of the hospital and the surrounding grounds. Enter the title: THE SECRET OF THE ASYLUM.
Comment from JAMES DOUGLAS on Sunday, 10th January 2010.
RE: RE: Claybury Memories.
Hi, I am trying to find anyone that worked at Claybury back in 1966, I have on my birth certificate that I was born there to Doreen Long.
Comment from Tracey Gray on Wednesday, 7th April 2010.
RE: RE: Claybury Memories.
From age 3, I lived at no. 123, Waltham Road, Woodford Bridge, until I married and left home in 1969. Both my parents continued to live there. My mother worked for the Dr, Barnado's home there for many years and as a child I went with her to work, from time to time. As a result, I became relatively familiar with the huge grounds and layout of that institution, which backed right up to my primary school in Roding Lane North. The children living at the home had their own gate into the school grounds, so did not have to set foot on a public road to go to the school. Although, as a child, I must have walked and cycled past the main entrance to Claybury Hospital hundreds of times, I do not ever recall setting foot in the grounds there. there was no reason why I should really. It always looked somehow a bit foreboding to me as a child, in the way that Victorian institutions seemed to do. As a teenager, I was a keen cyclist and recall Audrey Gunton's Bike shop in the High Street. My parents bought me a Phillips bicycle, from her which she was an agent for. I also worked for Mr. Holton the butcher who had a shop further down the High Street on the other side. I delivered his customer's orders on Saturday mornings and made sausages on the premises, on some Saturday afternoons. Happy Daze!
Comment from Ted (Edward) MARSTON on Saturday, 30th July 2011.
RE: RE: Claybury Memories.
From age 3, I lived at no.123, Waltham Road, Woodford Bridge, until I married and left home in 1969. Both my parents continued to live there. My mother worked for the Dr, Barnado's home there for many years and as a child I went with her to work, from time to time. As a result, I became relatively familiar with the huge grounds and layout of that institution, which backed right up to my primary school in Roding Lane North. The children living at the home had their own gate into the school grounds, so did not have to set foot on a public road to go to the school. Although, as a child, I must have walked and cycled past the main entrance to Claybury Hospital hundreds of times, I do not ever recall setting foot in the grounds there. there was no reason why I should really. It always looked somehow a bit foreboding to me as a child, in the way that Victorian institutions seemed to do. As a teenager, I was a keen cyclist and recall Audrey Gunton's Bike shop in the High Street. My parents bought me a Phillips bicycle, from her which she was an agent for. I also worked for Mr. Holton the butcher who had a shop further down the High Street on the other side. I delivered his customer's orders on Saturday mornings and made sausages on the premises, on some Saturday afternoons. Happy Daze!
Comment from Ted (Edward) MARSTON on Saturday, 30th July 2011.
RE: RE: Claybury Memories.
As I mentioned elsewhere on these pages. I was born in Highfield Road. I was a paper boy with Mr Watkins in the High Street. My round was Clabury Hospital, and Dr. Barnardo's houses. On dark winter mornings it was very frightening to have to push your "TRADES BIKE" loaded with piles of papers up to the kitchen, through the poorly lit road. It was great when you unloaded the papers as you could pedal like mad and get out of there as quickey as possible. As a 10/12 year old we would go 'birds nesting' in the grounds, at the bottom of Millmans/Drapers Hill where the rooks nested. We would also pick hundreds of BLUEBELLS and take them home to mum. Happy Memories.
Comment from Frank Bedford on Wednesday, 7th March 2012.