Middlewood Hospital

[BarneyGumble 10]

my mum worked in the patients shop many years ago & I used to go in the school holidays & help out, it was a weird & wonderful place however could be quite scary & I did see some scary behaviour etc....As for the community it had allsorts there, I remember the boutique which sold really good clothes & then there was a cafe & also a car wash which my grandad used to go to when he picked us up. It was great as everyone knew everyone else. They used to have summer fetes and sell things the patients had made, baskets cushions things like that & it used to get jam packed full these days - that all took place around where the new estate is now.

I was fortunate enough to have a tour around when I was young & saw all the cells and everything & the cellers where the morgue used to be....scary stuff as my grandma was a nurse there & used to tell us about when she was a "junior nurse" & she was asked to take a dead body down to the morgue and as she got to the basement the body started moving and then sat up and asked for his breakfast!!!! Fab story which used to have us in stiches!! I think I have some old photos which I'll try to locate & scan in.

[peterw 10]

I remember MIddlewood Hospital in the 1940s when i had an Annexe to which some new patients (who were there for minor mental disturbances) would be admitted. There was a bowing green at the rear, where they played bowls practically all day. There was also a working farm where selected patients worked. It produced most of the hospital’s food and covered a vast area.

[HughW 10]

long shot I know... I worked and Trained at middlewood hospital 1975 - 1985, we were given a copy of a poem written by an old lady who had been a patient there it started like this

 

what do you see nurses...

 

Try googling the first line

 

Hugh

[Tim M 10]

Hi - does anyone remember seeing inside the Church at the hospital? We have a family 'myth' that my great, great grandfather painted murals in there. Does anyone know who owns it now? Any info? Thanks, Tim

[Grahame 10]

The land that Winn Gardens is built on used to belong to the Hospital and was used as allotments for the inmates. They were into handicraft and the like also and I remember seeing some wicker work that one of the residents had done and very good it was as well, it could have been sold in Cole Brothers alongside their other goods without any trouble. When I moved into my present house which is about twenty years ago I needed some flags for a patio and I bought them from there, again they were excellent quality, better than you get from a builders merchant and they had steel reinforcing rods in them. When they delivered them in a lorry the driver who looked after the men was excellent and he told me a little of their problems. I was very impressed with the care they had and felt nothing but sympathy for them. A short while later it was announced the hospital was closing. I often wonder what happened to the inmates and how they can be looked after as effectively when they were rehoused all over Sheffield? Admittedly with the intention of putting them back into the community.

[Grahame 10]

That poem has brought tears to my eyes.

[jan2002 10]

Thanks to Hugh I googled and found the poem I have searched for for 20 years, here it is, take time to read it, it applies anywhere really if you delete the word nurse.

 

What do you see, nurses, what do you see?

What are you thinking, when your looking at me --

A crabby old woman, not very wise,

Uncertain of habit, with far-away eyes,

Who dribbles her food and makes no reply,

When you say in a loud voice -- "I do wish you'd try."

Is that what you're thinking, is that what you see?

Then open your eyes, nurse, you're looking at ME...

I'll tell you who I am, as I sit here so still;

As I rise at your bidding, as I eat at your will.

 

I'm a small child of ten with a father and mother,

Brothers and sisters, who love one another,

A young girl of sixteen with wings on her feet.

Dreaming that soon now a lover she'll meet;

A bride soon at twenty -- my heart gives a leap,

Remembering the vows that I promised to keep;

At twenty-five now I have young of my own,

Who need me to build a secure, happy home;

A woman of thirty, my young now grow fast,

Bound to each other with ties that should last;

At forty, my young sons have grown and are gone,

But my man's beside me to see I don't mourn;

At fifty once more babies play 'round my knee,

Again we know children, my loved one and me.

 

Dark days are upon me, my husband is dead,

I look at the future, I shudder with dread,

For my young are all rearing young of their own,

And I think of the years and the love that I've known;

I'm an old woman now and nature is cruel --

'Tis her jest to make old age look like a fool.

 

I remember the joys, I remember the pain,

And I'm loving and living life over again,

I think of the years, all too few -- gone too fast,

And accept the stark fact that nothing can last --

So I open your eyes, nurses, open and see,

Not a crabby old woman, look closer, nurses -- see ME

 

jan2002

[sweetdexter 10]

There used to be an annex at Grenoside .Salt Box Lane area

I remember doing some work there 60-1.

We used to buy our lunch .Best sponge pudding I have ever had

[slimsid2000 10]

Does anyone remember the staff and social club at Middlewood Hospital. I know it was there in the late 70's and early 80's as I was often there as a child.

[jan2002 10]

I remember the staff social club, had a few good nights in there !

Jogged the memory, the christmas parties were great fun

[golightly 10]

hi, im not from sheffield, and im quite young so i dont really remember the asylum, but something very unusual happened to me recently. i'm a spiritualist medium, but i choose not to use it. however, something is being highly persistant with me and it wont go away. i know that it is connected to middlewood asylum and its becoming increasingly apparent that i should go and visit soon. i had no idea that the site was under rennovation, which is even wierder as i keep getting told that i must go soon before it's too late. the very wierd thing is, a friend of mine is a photographer, and he recently took some pics of the old place, and one of them jumped out at me as being where i need to go. it sounds as though it's the spot where someone previously described the pink chalk. if anyone has any information for me about the type of patients held there, particularly young females. i would be grateful. xx

[Jabberwocky 46]

A friend of mine told me that in the late 60s that his dad was a delivery driver, delivering sheets and things to the hospital.

One afternoon, he was reversing his van up to the loading bay when he noticed a line of six small men all with bald heads, all walking in a line towards one of the buldings.

Walking with them were a couple of male orderlies.

One of the small people suddenly grinned and broke ranks and tottered over to the van. He was dragged back into line by a yelling orderly and just as they passed through the rubber doors of the building, one of the orderlies slapped him around the head hard.

I was only a kid when I heared this but years later I asked my friends dad about it and he said it actually happened.

 

I wonder if there are any other wierd tales like that about the place.