800 Comments for Great Barr Colony (St Margaret's Hospital)

Directly under these windows little grave stones are set into the ground, I was told they were the families pets.

On the outside wall of the chapel there were and still should be little grave stones set into the ground, I was told they were the graves of the pets of the scott family.
This shot is beautiful and reminds me of my ghostly encounter in the hall, whilst we were standing in this chapel the white lady drifted past the doorway which leads back into the main hall, that was the end of exploring for that day :)

Yeh there were cast iron grids for ventilation but also there were large steel girders in this front room above the cellar humps from when they started to restore it the first time, it looks to me like someone has removed all the steel.

The Hall has extensive cellars from what I was told and could see, when I last visited they had stripped the floor out of the main hall
at the front of the building and all you could ssee was the top of the cellar humps, I can't tell from the photo but if this is the front hall I am I so disappionted cause they were all intacked with a steel gurder structure over the top of them, no reason they should have fell in like this and it makes me ask once again if it will ever get the restoration it deserves or just the continuing distruction?

No Bovis don't own the hall or the lakes, the horrible security guard who I met was the same, rude and threatening, even if he did talk to you he wouldn't have been able to tell you anything about the hall or orinimental lakes cause I doubt very much if he even knows anything about it, he didn't seem that intelligent to me!!
I just hope he's telling the truth on the above message and they are going to restore it and not accidentally knock it down!!!

The rude security guard who left the message sounds like the one I met, get an attitude change mate. I have visited the hall on many occasions long before you'd ever heard of it and I have never done any damage on any of my visits... this aggression makes me wonder what your hiding?
I agree with blue lamp, I would also like to know if your actually going to restore this beautiful building, it is part of the hertitage of Great Barr...or will you just wait til it falls down so you haven't got to bother restoring it at all!!!

The state that the council and other so called officals have let the hall get into you certainly wouldn't think it was a grade II listed building, sometimes when I look at it I think that it's been let get into this state on purpose because if it falls down then they won't have to restore this wonderful building and that greatly angers and saddenes me. it is about time someone did something before this is the case and it is lost forever.

The Hall was used as offices by the hospital right into the 1970's, that would explain the Chief male nurse sign.
The stairs had chalk mouldings inlayed all the way down.

I have visited the hall on many occasion and yeh the hall was stripped and all the matterial taken out was stored in the outbuildings behind the hall but when restoration stopped all the material that was taken out was just left there left to rott.
When i first visited the hall the stair case was still intacked and was being supported by all the scaffolding, it even still had the chalk mouldings down the sides of it but over time and visits it collapsed or was vandilised, lets face it not all it's visitors were like us who just went to look in amazement.
I love the photos but it saddens me to see just how much it has deteriated.

I agree with Maz, Walsall Council should be ashamed of itself, I know people who own other grade II listed properties in the area and the council come down hard on them if they paint them the wrong colour or put chimney pots up that are not the correct period but they have managed to just ignore this wonderful property altogether for the last 30 years!!

Scott Hall has not been demolished only the hospital buildings around it have been pulled down. Scott Hall needs to be and is supposed to be restored by the people who now own it, I just hope they do what they are supposed to. It would be a crime if this wonderful building wasn't restored to it's former glory.
The hall was used by St. Margaret's into the 70's as offices, after that it was sold to someone who wanted to turn it into a country club and from what I was told he started to strip it out to restore it before he got planning permission, when he was refused he left it in the state it is in now.
I have been in the hall on many occasions and the continuing worstening state of the hall deeply saddens me, the last time I was in there it was not in the state that these photo's now show it in.
I attempted to visit the outside of the hall just last year as I have kept my horses next to St Margaret's for 20 years, I know the area well, it's history, and it's ghosts to show some visitors from a ghost club the grave stones which are on the front of the chapel but I was met at the hall by a rather nasty, rude security guard who wouldn't let us anywhere near even the outside!
As for the ghosts, there are quite a few in this area, the white lady has been seen in the hall, on one visit I had an encounter with her, I stood in the chapel and out of the corner of my eye she walked past the doorway which connects it to the main hall of the building, didn't hang around much longer that day :)
She has also been seen in the graveyard of St Margaret's Church and she occasionally walks through the mill archway on the farm where I keep my horses.

There was alot of equiptment around at one time, beds of all kinds, chairs and some very strange contraptions but all has gone now. Most of the buildings have now been demolished on this site, the chapel lane end has definately been gone about 12 months now.

Yeh David Salt is right, All the buildings I went in when they were first abandoned had the most wonderful parquet wooden floors, over time the local kids got in, ripped up the floors, piled them up and burned them, crying shame.

Alot of 'the homes' as we used to call them were the same shape and size, all stood identical to the next, I regularly visited the site both on my horse and walking my dogs and I used to enjoy the creepy yet settling peace of the place...if that makes and sense.
You'd walk between these seemingly masive buildings, their black empty windows somehow watching your every step.
I was told that alot of people lived in each 'home' and the upstairs floors housed big dormitories, the single story buildings (on the loop as I remember ther were 3 I think) were used for treatments.

In answer to Dr. Mont

Yeh the place was and still is massive, although almost all of the hospital buildings have now been demolished, the hospital itself was in 2 parts, the main part up by the queslett road and then the part in these photo's bordered chapel lane. Years ago it had a farm on it, there was a very large air raid shelter hidden somewhere in the woods, it had a large work shop type of yard between the 2 main halves of the hospial, then there is Scott Hall, it's outbuilding which are on the hill between the 2 parts of the hospital and it's 2 ornimental lakes, all this is surrounded by fields which used to be farmed until they stopped us and it has extensive woodland. And all of this is now being spoilt by them building over priced new houses, shame.