Explorer reveals footage of abandoned Welsh asylum

A content creator has offered a glimpse inside an abandoned hospital that treated patients across mid Wales for much of the 20th century.

Jay Curtis, better known by his social media handle JC Explores, creates content focused on Wales’ “overlooked heritage and off-the-beaten-path discoveries”. 

He recently visited Talgarth Mental Asylum, also known throughout various points in history as Brecon and Radnor Lunatic Asylum and most commonly as Mid Wales Hospital.

The hospital opened in 1903 and closed in 1999. It housed 496 patients at its peak, including those suffering from ‘shell shock’ after World War II and tuberculosis patients in a separate isolation hospital.

JC Explores’ video features footage of the overgrown grounds and long-since abandoned buildings, which once included upwards of twelve wards, an occupational therapy suite, an outpatient clinic, a farmstead and accommodation for ‘patient workers’, and a chapel.

As Jay says, “The hospital was designed to be self-sufficient. It had its own water supply, its own electricity, workshops, a bakery, a farm, even a ballroom for entertaining the patients and staff.”

Jay also delves into the institution’s complex history. He explains: “[The hospital] was once touted as a beacon of hope, a place where people struggling with their minds could find care and hopefully treatment. But behind these walls, the reality was far more complicated.

“The site was chosen for its remoteness so that hundreds of patients could be hidden away from plain sight, many of them for reasons that would simply shock us today. Depression, anxiety, even mental health behaviours that society simply didn’t understand at the time.

“Treatment methods were harsh, experimental and often extreme, with people often locked away in padded cells. Electroshock therapy, heavy sedation, isolation and even in the 1900s, leucotomies, a controversial treatment designed to sever the connection with the brain through the eye socket.

“After both world wars, patient numbers rose sharply into the thousands as returning soldiers suffered mental trauma and many were treated at the hospital’s military wing and over the years, many patients were even buried in the asylum’s churchyards.”

Throughout its time serving communities in mid Wales as well as patients from further afield including Swansea and Shrewsbury, mental healthcare improved and many earlier treatments such as barbiturate-induced comas and electroconvulsive therapy became controversial.

With the introduction of psychotropic drugs in the late 1950s, long-term institutionalisation declined and many people struggling with mental health were able to be treated without the hospital.

After Powys NHS Trust introduced a care in the community programme, Mid Wales Hospital’s patient numbers declined throughout the 1990s, and the trust began to transfer care to Bronleys Hospital.

Jay explains: “Eventually the site was locked up in 1999 and today these empty, eerie corridors and hospital wings continue to fade away into the landscape.

“But telling the story of Talgarth today means what happened here won’t fade away like these abandoned ruins. If you’ve got a connection to Talgarth, I’d love to hear your memories…”

One commenter shared the story of an uncle who had been housed there, writing: “He never said much about the place but I felt he was abused. He would talk about the place with a lot of coldness.”

Another, whose grandmother had been a patient at Talgarth, shared a happier memory: “Years later I qualified as a nurse and got my presentation of my nurse certificate and badge there in 1980.”

Many JC Explores followers who live near the site expressed a desire to see the hospital’s grounds restored and “made safe for people to visit for history” or used for other purposes.

Following its sale for £227,000, there was an attempt to renovate the site for use as a business park, but as a result of the 2008 recession this venture failed.

There have since been various attempts to convert the site for residential use, but these plans have seemingly been turned down due to the old hospital’s deliberately isolated character.

For more explorations, from “eerie abandoned places to cultural highlights and outdoor adventures”, follow JC Explores on Facebook and YouTube, or visit his site here.