“From the site of London’s notorious Bedlam Hospital, they are the long-buried remains of many asylum patients once subjected to the cruel and brutal treatments that characterised our early understanding of mental health”
This article came to me at the same time as I am reading Sue Piddock’s recently released paper “Archaeology and the Lunatic Asylum“. Here she believes that the history of the place is told through the archaeology. She believes that the treatments and the mental illness itself can skewed the witnesses testimony. She believes that basic conditions are told through the interpretation of the archaeology of a site and can be considered more accurate.
“While patients have written about their experiences over the centuries (see Porter 1991), such accounts do not fully cover the patient experience, and their writers have their own agendas, often tempered by the belief that the person has been wrongly admitted to the asylum for various reasons and is not in fact mentally ill. There is also the problem of determining whether the experience described is accurate or influenced by mental illness which may produce delusions or paranoia. The archaeology of institutions allows us to explore the world of the asylum and to provide a different voice from the official one of documentation relating to the asylum produced by those given control over the asylum.”
The following article from the UK is the archaeology from a site that is the first known asylum in Europe, Bedlam mental health hospital, established in 1247 and is to become the new site of the UK’s Liverpool Street train station and new cross tunnel. Click here to read Susan work, which is a 58 page document and includes Willow Court: Susan Piddock article Susan is known as one of Australia leading writers and authorities of Asylum’s both in Australia and the UK. She has previously allow her works to be published on this site and that can be found HERE
*WARNING THE PICTURE IS LINKED TO THE NEWSPAPER ARTICLE WHICH HAS PHOTOS OF HUMAN REMAINS AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN*
