Comments on: A geography of stigma

By: Jim Smith

Jim Smith — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 15:41:55 +0000

The train station at Hanwell in West London is called Hanwell & Elthorne for exactly the same reason – Hanwell was another Victorian asylum, and the station name was changed so that people could say they were going to Elthorne instead of ‘going to Hanwell’, meaning going mad.

Elthorne didn’t really exist as a dwelling until the renaming – Elthorne was a Saxon hundred covering the whole of the area from Ealing to Uxbridge, so naming one station Elthorne was a bit like calling Oxford Street station ‘London’.

Odd that Hanwell didn’t get completely erased and Colney Hatch did…

By: OPH

OPH — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 11:38:40 +0000

I can strongly recommend the book ‘London Orbital’ by Iain Sinclair – primarily an account of his walk around the outer reaches of London (interesting in it’s own right) but it covers some of the former asylums in some detail. There are a number of them, and they all appear to have been turned in to ‘luxury housing developments’.

By: amelie

amelie — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 03:29:15 +0000

Really interesting. I wonder about the regionality of this. Here they called them “State Schools” before they unceremoniously tossed patients out into the street. Still earned historical building designation, though.

On an unrelated note, didn’t Jefferson Starship undergo just as many name changes?

By: Dr. Kevin Keough

Dr. Kevin Keough — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 00:01:45 +0000

Wow-great story. So curious such things happen in so most parts of the world. And from your presentation of the Asylum there isn’t even a hint of odd goings in this facility. Many former Asylums have colorful, tragic, intractable corruption and so on. Sounds like this spot was not spooked over the centuries from bad luck.

Thank you for such a strong and solid manifestation of the geography of stigma. You must love your work.

Kevin Keough