Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum

Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum (or Friern Hospital) was an early psychiatric hospital located in Colney Hatch in what is now the London Borough of Barnet. The hospital was in operation from 1851 to 1993. At its height Colney Hatch was home to 3500 mental patients and had the longest corridor in Britain, and hence, its name was synonymous among Londoners with any mental institution. It would take a visitor more than five hours to walk the wards. The lunatic asylum, as such hospitals were known at the time, was located on Friern Barnet Road. It is shown on this Victorian Ordnance Survey map of 1876-1881 which marks Colney Hatch Park in the area centred on Springfield Road in New Southgate, in the London Borough of Enfield. The asylum itself...