Fair Mile Hospital 1.33

Fair Mile Hospital was a lunatic asylum north of Moulsford and east of Cholsey, near the River Thames between Wallingford and Reading in England, formerly in Berkshire and from 1974 with the boundary changes in Oxfordshire.The UK 1845 County Asylums Act required all counties to provide residential treatment for those with mental illness. The hospital was opened in 1870 as the County Lunatic Asylum for Berkshire. Previous names include the Moulsford Asylum, Berkshire Lunatic Asylum, and Berkshire Mental Hospital . The architect George Thomas Hine designed extensions for the building in 1898. The hospital became part of the National Health Service in 1948 under its final name, Fair Mile Hospital. At its peak, the hospital held over a thousand patients. The facility closed in 2003 when use had declined due to modern mental health policy and treatment. The Victorian buildings remain substantially complete, having been converted to dwellings. New housing occupies other parts of the site, largely confined to areas previously used for ancillary structures.