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a quick peek at the Kirkbride buildings site shows Taunton as the earliest, built in 1854, and Fergus Falls as the last, in 1906.

Perhaps our concern with privacy for personal hygiene activities is a modern, fairly recent preoccupation? I remember how humiliating it was to have to use open showers and changing areas in the locker rooms in junior high and high school in the 70s. The junior high was built in the 1920s and the high school in the 1950s. Especially in junior high, we were required to shower after every gym class, which we had at least three times a week. Part of our grade (letter grades, not pass/fail) depended on taking the showers. The only way to get out of it "legally" was to have your period. Then you just had to take a "half-shower," essentially a sponge bath at the sink. You could only get by with this a couple of days a month, though, because the half-showers were noted, too. In recent years my teens have told me that not only do they rarely have gym class, they are not required to change clothes or shower. I also never liked the bathrooms in school (kids sneaking in to smoke, crude jokes, teasing, teachers popping in to try to catch smokers, locks that didn't work on stall doors, paper towel dispensers empty), but I am amazed at how many teenagers today tell me that they refuse to use the bathroom at school, even going all day without food, just to avoid the bathrooms.

Damn! We'll never know what could be down there in the abyss!!!

Motts...You mentioned that this place was the scene of much abuse. This room was where the baddest of the misbehaving bunch wound up in time out.

I joined the Marines in 82 and went to Recruit training at San Diego. This reminds me of our "head". We had about 10 shitters on opposite sides of the room facing each other. It was odd sitting there taking a dump with 19 other people all doing the same thing.

Maybe the lower center section (without the crisscross in the middle) was a single fixed pane of glass, and the two lower side sections (with the dividing bars) were casement windows that could be opened for some ventilation, while still being small enough to prevent a person from getting through them.

I wonder if the windows so high above the doors (instead of the transoms right above the door that are common in US architecture of that time) in English construction have something to do with the latitude of England and getting more natural light into the rooms? I've tried to make a model that would demonstrate how light transmitted through a window might vary with the angle of the sun and the location of the window, but I clearly don't know what I'm doing. The latitude of Sussex is 51 degrees North. New York City is 40 degrees North. Calgary, Alberta is 51 degrees North. I know that the further north the latitude, the lower the sun angle. On one site I found an equation for calculating window placement based on latitude, the length of shadows on the first day of summer and the first day of winter, but when math starts talking about declinations and tangents, it's beyond me.

Most of these people didn't know or have any idea that they were nude and did not have the mental capacity to be embarrassed.

I moved to Nottingham in the mid 70's (Bensalem) which borders the state grounds
we ventured through the old byberry and it was quite the thrill! I cherish the memories.
I'm glad to see the memories still live, thank you to the picture takers.

I see this as a sort of metaphor for life. We move daily done the hallway, searching for patches of light. Meanwhile, paradise is just on the other side of the door, if only we can open it.

Blood stains on the floor?

Donnaweiller....affection??? How about tear off your frickin head. You have no clue.

surly girl, what's a "pikey?" Is it a reference to scavengers in general or to those who steal materials for resale/reuse--or something else altogether?

I heard about a case here in the US where some guys went in a clearly marked ("danger," "private property," "no trespassing," blocked-up entrance) abandoned mine to hunt for copper or other materials that they could sell to a scrap metal recycler. Once inside, they got lost and were rescued after a two or three day search by the mining company and local fire departments, who searched at substantial risk to themselves. Now the wannabe thieves have sued the mining company, saying there was not adequate warning of the danger and the company should have taken more measures to prevent unauthorized entry. Do lawsuits like this happen in other parts of the world, or is this an American phenomenon?

It looks like a zoo.

The ghost that is haunting Halcyon Hall is that of James Ware, who is getting even for the gross destruction of his magnificent creation. No one even had the sense to close the windows after the college closed.

Anyone that has been a regular on Opacity knows that Motts' is fascinated with anything that he finds from the former patients. great picture motts.