The Demise of Talgarth Hospital

Originally named the Brecon and Radnor Joint Counties Lunatic Asylum, the hospital was opened on 18 March 1903 to provide a place of care and safety for its inmates. Like other such institutions, the asylum was designed to be self-sufficient, having its own private water, electricity, heating and sewerage systems as well as a substantial agricultural estate where able-bodied patients worked to produce food for the hospital. There were also facilities for a tailor, bakery, shoemaker and printing shops as well as a large market garden. In time the asylum was extended and renamed the Mid-Wales Counties Mental Hospital.

In 1948 the hospital became part of the National Health Service. Several innovations, such as art and occupational therapy, ECT, physiotherapy and psychiatry were introduced. After the introduction of Care in the Community in the early 1980s the hospital went into a period of decline, and it finally closed in 1999. There were plans to redevelop the site as business park, and several buildings were converted and occupied by local companies, however given the site's isolated location the venture failed. Several properties belonging to the estate were sold off and the rest has gradually become derelict, especially after the original slates were stripped from the roofs. Until recently it was an attraction for urban explorers, but the site is in too dangerous a condition for that now.