History:
Bethlem hospital, the original 'bedlam' ( meaning Bethlehem) was founded in 1247 as the Priory of St Mary of Bethlehem. It was the first public institution for the care of mentally disordered patients in the country and is now part of the Maudsley Hospital Trust, a world renowned psychiatric teaching hospital.
Bethlem is one of the five Royal Hospitals of the City of London and has moved three times since it was founded. The original medieval buildings were located on a site in Bishopsgate (1247- 1676) that is now below Liverpool Street station. The second building designed by Robert Hooke in baroque style was on a site in Moorfields (1676-1815). The exterior of the building was impressive but it was badly constructed on inadequate foundations and was finally abandoned due to structural collapse of the building fabric.
The hospital was rebuilt at St George's in the Fields (1815- 1930) where the building survives as the Imperial War Museum. Designed by the hospital surveyor James Lewis the building was arranged in two wings either side of a central administration block. The wards consisted of long galleries with cells opening off them. In 1838 the project was completed by Sidney Smirke who added extensions and a dome to house a larger chapel. The interior of the building is depicted in Hogarth's 'A rakes progress' showing a patients in the gallery and confined to straw beds with visitors looking on.
The current hospital location is a former country house estate on the outskirts of south London. Amongst the specialist services offered at Bethlem are the Mother and Baby unit, eating disorders unit, drug treatment and rehabilitation units, child and adolescent units and Denis Hill (Forensic psychiatry) unit, psychosis, neurosis, depressions, Alzheimer's disease, traumatic stress disorder, epilepsy, drug and alcohol addiction, autism, and behaviour disorders. The hospital includes a museum that exhibits the hospital's collection of historical objects and works of art.




Architecture:
For the most recent hospital buildings developed in the 1930s, a rural site was chosen to offer more light, space and air whilst being in easy reach of central London. Planned on a villa system, in contrast to the large asylums that dominated the 19th century developments, the plan by John Cheston and Charles Elcook included four separate houses each with wards, kitchen, dining room, and self contained garden. An administration unit, nurses home, recreation hall, chapel, staff restaurant and kitchen and 'science and treatment laboratories' are housed separately. The buildings are red brick with stone dressings ornamented in art deco Egyptian style.