Memorial remembers 5,000 who died at Coulsdon's Cane Hill asylum
By Matt Johnson
matt.johnson@essnmedia.co.uk
A permanent memorial to the thousands of souls laid to rest at Cane Hill Hospital has been welcomed by those who used to run the asylum.
The monument has been placed in the garden of remembrance at Croydon Cemetery, as a tribute to the estimated 5,000 patients who died at the mental health hospital in Coulsdon between 1884 and 1950.
The bodies of patients were originally buried in the hospital grounds but in 1981 the council was granted permission to remove them.
The exact locations of the graves were unknown so the remains had to be carefully exhumed by hand digging and transferred to the cemetery in Mitcham Road for cremation.
The ashes were then scattered in an area known as Location 1,000 within the garden of remembrance.
A memorial marking this location had been lacking until the council placed the tribute – a bronze plaque mounted on a granite base – at the cemetery in February.
Felix Philand was chief officer at the hospital between 1969 and 1988 and lives in Windermere Road, Coulsdon.
He said: "I think it's very fitting. I think it's a wonderful thought and a wonderful thing to do.
"Of course it's right these people should be remembered. They're human beings the same as you and me."
Former grounds keeper Bob King's grandmother was a patient at Cane Hill and passed away there in the 1970s.
Mr King, who lives in Richmond Road, Coulsdon, said: "It's certainly a good idea. It's important that these people are remembered."
Coulsdon West councillor Gavin Barwell said: "For years, we've been approached by people wanting to see the final resting place of their relatives and we've only been able to point them towards an unmarked mound of earth in Croydon Cemetery's Garden of Remembrance.
"We didn't feel it right that such an anonymous setting was all that people could reflect upon when they wanted to remember loved ones.
"We feel sure that visitors will soon look upon it as a suitable memorial area for those who died at Cane Hill Hospital."
Built on a hilltop overlooking Coulsdon and Farthing Downs, Cane Hill Hospital was officially known as the 3rd Surrey County Pauper Lunatic Asylum.
When it opened in December 1883, it had space for 1,100 patients, but within five years had been extended to accommodate 2,000.
It closed all but its secure unit in late 1991 and the government's Homes and Communities Agency is presently drawing up redevelopment plans for the derelict site.
These are expected to include offices, homes and community facilities.
Comments
by Adrian Falks (minister of Religion), South Norwood, London Borough of Croydon
Friday, August 14 2009, 1:41PM
“Clearance of Cane Hill Hospital Cemetery = Destruction of over 40 Army Graves of Soldiers of the First World War.
Particularly during the First World War, Service Personnel who died there were interred in large Public Graves; the difference being that these 'Service Graves' contained far fewer burials, and the War Office agreed to certain additions, so even though these soldiers were suffering from Mental Disorders, they were buried with due and appropriate Ceremony.
As your article states, the remains were incinerated, pulverised and the Ashes were deposited at Mitcham Road. It was only 28 years later that a plaque was placed there. However, the ashes of former Service Personnel (whose exhumed bones could not have been cremated separately,) had to be mingled indiscriminately with as many as five thousand other bodies. As a consequence, the remains of dozens of Soldiers which had previously reposed in consecrated ground set aside for Army Personnel are now totally lost. One wonders of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is aware of this act of desecration?”