For close to 150 years Kingsway Hospital has been tending to the mental health needs of the people of Derby from its site on the RowditchMental Health care was originally carried out at a private asylum on Green Lane catering for paying clients. For everyone else, though, the only care available was in Leicester, Burntwood or nearby Pastures built in 1849. As early as 1863 recommendations had been made to build an asylum for the Borough however it was only when the three hospitals announced they would no longer accept patients from Derby that authorities were forced to act. After considering several sites they finally agreed on the Rowditch and advertised for architects to submit plans for a 300-bed unitThere were 150 submissions, and the winning design was by Benjamin S Jacobs from Hull. Built in red brick in the popular neo-Jacobean style the hospital had an administration block at its entrance with the wards ranged out behind. They had large windows and were positioned so that they all benefited from sunshine at some point during the day and were all named after Derbyshire towns and villages. There were extensive grounds to enable patients to walk around, a cricket pitch, flower beds, many trees and a farm which included a piggery and herd of cattle, supplying milk and meat to the asylumThe hospital opened in 1888 as the Borough Lunatic Asylum and the first Medical Superintendent was a Dr Rutherford McPhail. Over the years Kingsway has been at the forefront of a number of advances in patient care. Including being the first asylum in the UK to appoint a dedicated team who sought to find convalescent patients work in the community prior to their discharge.In 1908 the name of the hospital was changed to Derby Mental Hospital acquiring its current name in 1938.With the retirement of Dr McPhail in 1920 the innovative ideas of the hospital continued under Dr Bain who adopted an experimental regime which enabled patients to have a little more freedom. The locking of doors was relaxed, and some patients were also allowed outside the asylum grounds and given pocket money if they worked within the asylum or its farmsFor many years patients had found employment in these farms however by 1956 attitudes had changed and there was a belief that it was exploitative. As a result the minister for health ordered their closure resulting in a loss of employment for the patients. In part to make up for this a bowling green and miniature golf course were constructedBy the end of the 1980s government policy was to encourage Care in the Community and to promote the closure of these large institutions, however Kingsway hung on. Although efforts were made to save the buildings and grounds demolition finally came in 2011 to be replaced by a 700-home housing estate called Manor KingswayInterestingly, when researching this topic many of the source’s state that the hospital closed in 2009. Although many of the old buildings were, indeed demolished the hospital remains open in modern buildings, albeit on a much-reduced site carrying on the business of caring for people in mental distress