Hensol Castle: Hiding Away People with Learning Disabilities

Hensol Castle, located in the Welsh Vale of Glamorgan, was built in the 17th and early 18th century.Sir Francis Caradoc Rose Price (1880-1949) inherited the Hensol estate and put it up for sale in 1923 since "the old place" would require too much money to be maintained which again had become difficult as income-tax and supertax had risen considerably in the years before. The castle was sold in 1926 to Glamorgan County Council for use as a County mental hospital. Hensol hospital was opened in 1930 as a "colony" for 100 men with learning disabilities. New blocks were added to accommodate up to 460 persons. In 2003, the hospital was closed (via).



Patients were branded "mental defectives". Many children and adults with autism and Down's Syndrome were hidden away at this institution turning Hensol into "a hidden and often painful part of Wales' history". A great many others were misdiagnosed and lived in this institution completely isolated from society (via)




In 1967, South African photographer Jürgen Schadeberg visited Hensol hospital.

Schadeberg’s Welsh photographs range from the surprising to the thought-provoking and the unsettling. They focus on individual faces and personalities at a time when people with learning disabilities were invisible, herded into high-walled hospitals, hidden away for years. (via)

Schadeberg's photographs were exhibited a few years ago.

As I walked onto the ‘Nightingale ward’ all those years ago, with beds either side of a very long corridor, I noticed shapes laying in the beds that were moving.
I didn’t realise these were actually people until I was introduced to one patient. I can still see the young woman’s beautiful smile and really bright, brown eyes looking at me with affection and acceptance. I remember talking to her – she communicated back non-verbally yet we could understand each other perfectly.
The exhibition room made me feel absurdly calm and safe as I was transported back to that little girl. I say absurdly, as it was a frightening, imposing, institution wheredoors locked, people screamed and scary people wore white coats and starched uniforms.
Carol Davies (who was five and her mother a staff nurse)

photographs by Jürgen Schadeberg via