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| Archive Reference / Library Class No. | D1658 |
| Title | Pastures Hospital, formerly Derby County Lunatic Asylum, Mickleover |
| Date | 1851-1993 |
| Description | Patient registers 1851-1976 (gaps), Patient case books 1851-1934, various medical registers, report books, treatment books 19th-20th century, Chapel registers 1961-1993 |
| Extent | 20 shelves |
| Level | Fonds |
| Repository | Derbyshire Record Office |
| Full Catalogue List | Click here to view a full list for this collection |
| Archive Creator | Pastures Hospital, formerly Derby County Mental Hospital and Derby County Lunatic Asylum |
| Administrative History | The hospital opened in 1851 as the county lunatic asylum, taking pauper and private patients. It became Derbyshire County Mental Hospital in 1918 and was renamed Pastures Hospital in 1948. It closed in 1993 as part of the reorganisation of mental health care. |
| Custodial History | These records were deposited at Derbyshire Record Office in several consignments from 1976. |
| Organisation Sub-Type | Hospitals |
| Access Conditions | These records are closed for 100 years from the date of the last record, because they contain data relating to living individuals. Please contact us for further information. |
| Related Material | See D2200/C/1/1 for plans and some photographs of the county asylum 1884-1925.
See D5874 for records of the Derby Borough Asylum (later Kingsway Hospital). |
| Term | Hospitals |
| Health services |
| Archivist Note | Burial Plots at Pastures Hospital
In 2005, DRO contacted a wide range of organisations in order to discover what happened to the burial plots following the closure of Pastures Hospital. These included the Diocesan Registry, the planning authorities and the current health authorities. Although we have not discovered any categorical evidence to prove it, the conversations with these bodies led us to conclude that the graves were not exhumed when Pastures closed as a hospital in 1993 and the site was developed.
In a telephone conversation at the time, the then Area Planning Officer for South Derbyshire District Council commented that when they surveyed the site in 1993, there was no evidence of any graves. Furthermore, it is believed that the graves are beneath what is now the play area open space on Swan Hill in Mickleover, Derby. The developers of the site were Redrow Homes and McClean Homes (which is now part of Taylor Wimpey plc). The contact details for Redrow Homes (East Midlands) Ltd (as of March 2018) are as follows:-
Redrow Homes East Midlands
Redrow House, Arundel Avenue, Castle Donington, Derby, DE74 2HJ
Tel: 01332 205200
Additional information supplied by the National Federation of Cemetery Friends < cemeteryfriends.com> on 02/11/2023:
From annual reports, etc the burial ground was definitely created at the time of the asylum's founding. Typically, perhaps half of the inmates/patients/residents who died there were buried in the asylum graveyard. The bodies of the rest of them were claimed by the family or friends for them to bury. The ones that were "left behind" were given paupers' funerals by the institution. There would be grave markers - typically a numbered iron or pottery stake.
For three volumes of grave registers (D1658/8/1-3), using the "standard" formats, that will equate to at least 1500-2000 graves, typical for this size of the asylum, operating over a century or so. With old OS maps suggesting that about an acre of land was set aside for burials, that would mean that a paupers' grave plot would typically contain 3 or 4 layers of graves.
It is not unusual for the markers to "disappear" before a developer starts work - they were perhaps sold for scrap or even turn up "saved" in a barn many years later. You can find such numbered grave markers for sale on online auction sites today.
With no burials for decades, the markers gone, and the ground overgrown, a typical surveyor will report he can see no signs of burials. |