Taking Place - 19 February 2014 - Therapeutic Landscapes: 19th Century

Therapeutic Landscapes: The Use and Design of Gardens and the Wider Landscape by Nineteenth-Century Psychiatric Institutions in EnglandDr Clare Hickman (Welcome Fellow in Medical History and Humanities, King's College London) AbstractA man of rank comes in, ragged and, dirty, and unshaven and with the pallor of a dungeon upon him; wild in aspect, and as if crazed beyond recovery. He has passed months in a lonely apartment, looking out on a dead wall; generally fastened in a chair [...] Liberty to walk at all hours of the cheerful day in gardens or fields, and care and attention, metamorphose him into the well dressed and well bred gentleman he used to be." John Connolly, 1856Large tracts of land surrounded nineteenth-century psychiatric institutions. This could be highly ornamental, agricultural or wooded in nature and was often a combination of all three. The elite private institutions reflected their domestic counterpart, the wealthy country house estate. Their gardens co