St Mary’s Asylum Abandoned Mortuary
Built in 1914, St Mary’s Hospital in Northumberland was once upon a time known as the Gateshead Borough Asylum. Ultimately closed down in 1995, it managed to shelter some of its rooms from immediate destruction; the most-interesting of which was the abandoned mortuary.
Abandoned Kings Park Psychiatric Center Morgue
Somewhere in the belly of the abandoned Kings Park Psychiatric Center lies this disturbing, ruined morgue. Not content with simply slipping into decay, the morgue has evidently been targeted by vandals in recent years. Doors have been ripped off their hinges. The backs of drawers have been kicked out. Graffiti unfurls across every visible surface, swamping the metal containers beneath a looping series of whorls and brightly-coloured whirls. Whatever dignity this place may have once had is long gone.
High Royds Asylum Morgue
After High Royds Asylum, situated in the village of Menston northwest of Leeds-Bradford Airport, closed its doors for the last time in 2003, its low, cavernous morgue briefly found fame as a photography mecca. The tiny windows, oppressive arched roof and feeling of being squashed gave the eerie room a wonderfully disconcerting atmosphere; one helped by the rotten and echoing building of which it was a part.
Severalls Asylum Morgue
A gloomy building with a dark past, the abandoned Severalls Hospital closed its doors in 1997. It was the final chapter that closed the book on what had been a rather bleak history (certainly in the hospital’s early days). After opening in 1913, Severalls witnessed a period of liberation, when psychiatrists were essentially allowed to practice whatever treatment on patients they saw fit. Without consent being obtained, dozens of patients were given electroshock therapy, while others were lobotomised or otherwise experimented on in the grimmest of conditions. Fittingly for a place of such horrors, the mortuary was suitably bleak.
Ellis Island Morgue
Ellis Island is rightfully famous as the first landing point for a generation of immigrants coming to America. But there was always a darker side to this gateway to the New World. After a long voyage and a sometimes even longer detention on the island, not everyone made it through the border. Some sadly died before they could start their new lives: hence the eight-body storage facility located on the island.
Denbigh Asylum Morgue
In the beautifully desolate north of Wales lies the abandoned Denbigh asylum. Built in 1848, it housed a permanent population of 1,500 patients and 1,000 staff right up until it was closed in 1995. Ever since, it’s been left to decay: a grand old building now only home to ghosts and one of the world’s creepiest morgues.
Cambridge Military Hospital Morgue
Built in 1879, Cambridge Military Hospital (nothing to do with the town of the same name) in Aldershot served British soldiers injured in the Boer, First and Second World Wars; plus uncountable ‘actions’ and ‘emergencies’ in between. Although its specialists saved thousands of lives over the years, not everyone pulled through. Those who died from their injuries were sent down to the hospital’s small and dingy morgue.
Hellingly Asylum Morgue
The late-Victorian/early-Edwardian-era saw a vogue for ‘splendid isolationism’ in institutional buildings. Hellingly Asylum is a perfect example of this. A remote facility, it was only in the last years of its life that other buildings began to creep into its surrounding environs. Yet even as it fell into decay amid a brand new stretch of suburbs, the abandoned asylum retained a sense of isolation almost overwhelming in its power.
Tenby Mortuary
Perhaps the most-curious thing about Tenby mortuary isn’t how freakishly pristine its gleaming white surfaces remain (although that is certainly a major part of it). Rather, it is the location that really stands out. Surrounding the rooms you see in these photos on all sides is a housing estate and industrial area. The abandoned morgue above doesn’t come attached to a hospital or
Hartwood Hospital Mortuary
Looking for all the world like a ruined castle from the outside, the abandoned Hartwood Hospital in Scotland was in fact once a self-sustaining asylum; complete with its own reservoir, farm and even graveyard. Slowly shut down over a long period of time that finally came to an end in the year 2000, it now stands derelict and empty: a gloomy shell amid a wasteland of broken buildings.
Harold Wood Hospital’s Abandoned Morgue
Opened in 1909 and finally closed in 2006, the empty remains of the abandoned Harold Wood Hospital have since become one of the most famous urban exploration sites in the whole of England. But nowhere in the hospital can compare in fame to the derelict morgue.
Letchworth Village Residential Home Morgue
The name ‘Letchworth Village’ today brings up images of neglected patients, crammed into stuffy, overcrowded dormitories. Despite offering the world the Polio vaccination, Letchworth was an asylum for the poor, sick and terminally mad that soon became a festering wound on the nation. As such, it is perhaps fitting that its abandoned morgue is now one of the creepiest places in the United States.
Alcatraz Morgue
Inside a tiny shed on the fringes of America’s most-infamous prison sits Alcatraz’s abandoned morgue. Built with little care in 1910, the intended temporary resting place for the island’s notorious prisoners is little more than a shack, capable of housing only three corpses at one time. Like the rest of the prison complex, it’s overwhelmingly bleak. Today, the abandoned autopsy table is buried under a thick layer of moss.
West Park Mortuary
A low redbrick building in the grounds of the abandoned West Park Mental Hospital in Surrey, West Park’s mortuary was until recently a haunting reminder of the area’s past. The last building to be closed off following a slowly-enacted demolition order, it continued to house creepy artifacts right up until late 2013.
St Peter’s Hospital Abandoned Mortuary
Grimy, gruesome and dank, the abandoned mortuary at St Peter’s Hospital in Surrey has to be one of the grimmest places on Earth. Dirty water pools on the floors, rust stains the walls and those who’ve visited report an almost-inhuman stench permeating every inch of the place. And that’s before we get onto the unknown joker who has scrawled stuff on the walls in what looks worryingly like blood.
Abandoned Durham County Hospital Mortuary
Unlike most of the entries on our list, the abandoned morgue in Durham County Hospital looks remarkably well-preserved. There’s none of the graffiti evident that often blights such locations. Nor has it fallen victim to the general disintegration that overcomes these places, as tiles crumble and ceilings sag and the whole place sinks into peaceful oblivion. Instead, the room seems almost crying out to be reused again, as if the hospital itself can’t accept the idea that it has been abandoned.
Abandoned Hospital Morgue in Denmark
Urban explorer olavXO documented these abandoned body fridges in the morgue of a derelict hospital in Denmark. We don’t know how long they’ve been out of use, but the gleaming metal doors had thankfully avoided vandalism at the time the picture was taken in 2015. The photographer writes: “In an abandoned hospital in Denmark, the doors to the sleeping pods of eternity have been opened for the last time.”
Abandoned Body Slab in Undisclosed Morgue
Another abandoned morgue with a gleaming steel body slab, this one in an undisclosed location. Whether this is a small facility or part of a larger institution, we’re unsure. Either way, the location may not have been closed for long, and appears to be far from derelict.
