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Haydock Lodge Asylum’s dark history of neglect and cruelty lingers in eerie experiences at the modern Holiday Inn built on site in Haydock, Lancashire, writes RACHAEL ELIZABETH
There are common horror tropes that are explored in TV shows, movies, and books. One such trope is someone seeing a person in their room and later realizing that they are actually home alone. Yet such an incident happened in real life and on the holiday. Inn hotel in Haydock, Lancashire.
While researching the history of the hotel, I came into contact via Facebook with a nice lady who worked on the same property as the Holiday Inn in the 1960s when it was a nursing home.
She stayed connected to the site as it changed and remembered the story of a man who complained to the staff about the woman he kept seeing in his room one night – you might assume it was the cleaner, but that night there was only two night staff on duty, and neither was a woman.
Hidden by the beauty of nature
In 1844 an impressive mansion, owned by the Legh family of Lyme, was purchased and converted into an insane asylum. The asylum was known as Haydock Lodge Asylum, and like the hotel that now stands in its place, it stood on a beautiful private plot of land surrounded by peaceful woodland.
Any arriving patient or family member on their way to visit a patient would likely have been put at ease by the impressive building and surroundings, but the horrors that unfolded behind the impressive stone walls were in stark contrast to the picturesque veneer.
One man, named as manager at the time, was Mr. Charles Mott. Mott had a career within the Commission for Poor Law, but his career was described as ‘controversial’. It has been documented that Charles Mott attempted to have his wife (whom he left after she found out he had a mistress and a secret child) taken into his own asylum.
There is also an account of a report prepared by Mr Mott when he was sent to investigate the claims of a man who, whilst working in a service in Suffolk, workhouse, had resorted to eating potato peels due to hunger. Mott reported – “[he] ate potato peels not because he was malnourished, which was not the case, but because he was an idiot.”
Haydock Lodge Asylum exposed
On February 24, 1846, the The Lunacy Commission received letters from Dr. Owen Owen Roberts after picking up the Rev. Evan Richards, who had been committed to the asylum in May 1844 on grounds of neglect and cruelty. It was recorded that the body was that of the pastor “Covered by bruises, scars and discolorations. That [sic] one of his toes was severely crushed. That one of his ears looked like it had been completely ripped off, and that his clothes were extremely filthy and disgusting.
As if the vicar’s treatment wasn’t bad enough, the mortality rate in the asylum was quite horrific: in 1845, 112 patients died at Haydock Lodge Asylum. According to National Archives data, 21 pauper patients died within the first month of being admitted to the shelter, while 46 died within the first six months and another 34 during their first year. The causes of death were recorded as follows: “18 due to exhaustion, 20 due to diarrhea, 13 due to general weakness, 12 due to epilepsy and 17 due to stroke”.
The drains were also said to be severely clogged, attracting rats and females.secrets‘ goods “full of feces” without adequate ventilation; and at one point five deceased patients were left in the asylum mortuary, none of the staff being able to identify them.
Another report of cruelty was forwarded by Dr. Hume to a poor law commissioner in November 1845. Dr. Hume was the house surgeon at Lincoln Asylum and when he visited a patient of his who had been transferred to Haydock Lodge Asylum he found him “with his face so black and disfigured with bruises that he could hardly recognize him.” It is also stated that he has filed a report “patients dying of diarrhea in a room used as a sitting room”.
Once the scandal was made public, it is still believed that the whole truth was not fully documented. In 1851 Haydock Lodge Asylum was closed, but reopened on 26 January 1852, but only for private patients. Yet the paupers began to return in 1854. Haydock Lodge Asylum was then taken over by John Wooton in 1981, and although records refer to Haydock Lodge as a ‘nursing home’ during this time, rumors still circulated that the patients were still being abused by Dr Wooton and his second wife.
In 1970, following the death of Dr John Wooton, Haydock Lodge Asylum/Nursing Home closed permanently and the building was eventually demolished.
The spirit of Haydock Lodge
It could be possible that the strange woman the man kept seeing in his hotel room that night was a pauper patient still wandering around her room… or could it be the wife of Dr. Wooton, who was described as a ‘ cruel and assertive woman’ , still checking to see if her patients are still behaving?
Tell us your thoughts on this Haycock Lodge Asylum article in the comments below!
RACHAEL ELIZBABETH is a lover and writer of history, the paranormal and true crime. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading ghost stories, participating in paranormal investigations, and wandering abandoned cemeteries..
