Exploring the abandoned York retreat mental institution and grounds.

BRIEF HISTORY OF LOCATION:

The Retreat was founded in 1792 and opened in 1796 by William Tuke. It was established initially to provide a place where Quakers who were mentally ill could be treated with respect and dignity. The first buildings were designed and built 1794, and include the work of several of the foremost architects of the city.
Its principles of ‘moral treatment’ were in stark contrast with some contemporary asylums, where doctors treated their patients with cruelty in an effort to tame them and force them into obedience. Tuke’s efforts to provide an alternative were partly a result of the death of a Friend from Leeds, Hannah Mills, a few weeks after she was admitted to York Lunatic Asylum (today Bootham Park Hospital). When Friends visited the York asylum after her death, they were shocked to find the inmates chained up in stablelike accommodation.

In the Retreat, patients were given their own private rooms and encouraged to perform useful tasks, and violence was forbidden. Tuke tried to create a community rather than an asylum, where there were no doctors, only ‘attendants’ who lived with the patients, ate with them and performed chores with them, encouraging a familial atmosphere. Unlike those committed to asylums, patients at the Retreat often recovered and were able to go home, a testament to the effectiveness of the establishment’s principles.
The ‘moral treatment’ practised at the Retreat was highly influential on the developing treatment of mental illness. The 19th century saw the emergence of the new discipline of psychiatry, which emphasised communicating with the mentally ill rather than merely trying to subdue them. As more humane treatment became the norm, the Retreat became a more conventional medical facility rather than a ‘community’. When Quakers were finally permitted to attend universities, William Tuke’s greatgrandson, Daniel Hack Tuke, trained as a doctor and came to work at the Retreat.
The establishment continued to follow conventional medical practice throughout the 20th century. In recent years the NHSfunded Retreat has made an effort to return to Quaker principles, and it has regained its reputation for innovation. Many of the buildings date from the 18th and 19th centuries and include work of several of the foremost architects of the city. The Retreat was designed to be airy and spacious with large windows giving views of the grounds. There is a Quaker burial ground on the property in which many prominent York Friends, including members of the Rowntree family, were laid to rest.

Welcome to the northern decay channel, in today’s video join us as we take a look round the retreat, one of the oldest institutions in the UK.

Our explore begins at the Quaker graveyard at the bottom of the grounds, After a quick roam through the grounds we noticed dozens of rabbits running about and then stumbled upon a very pretty peacock at the back of the actual hospital.

Access was very very difficult and we were almost about to give up until we found a very small open window that we were able to squeeze through.

You could still smell the aroma of hospital food and cleaning products in the corridors and the atmosphere was insane, it felt like the place could have just been shut down yesterday.

The end result was that our explore was cut short due to the fact that we heard a noise which sounded like a walkie talkie and a womans voice coming throught it along with keys being jingled literally behind the door we were stood at.

unfortunately I didn’t catch this on camera and we just legged it out of there, due to the sheer panic I was overwhelmed with adrenaline and wasn’t thinking about recording. I was going for the obvious assumption that it was security and I just wanted to get out of there however on our exit (as you can see on the video) we were expecting an inevitable apprehension from security outside waiting for us but too our surprise there was no one to be seen and we kept looking back as we walked down the grounds and there was still no security by the time we got to the very back end of the site. After speaking with other explorers who’ve been to the retreat and have experienced the same thing in the same part of the hospital, walkie talkie noises, voices and keys jingling as if a security guard was lurking except that they hid it out and waited for about ten minutes rather than running and after waiting no security appeared, so could this be a paranormal phenomenon? Who knows?


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REMINDER: We do not force entry into any of these places. We only use access points available to us on the day and if there is none, we leave the site how it was to conserve it. If we get in, we do not vandalise anything.


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