Tag Archives: Tooting Bec Asylum

Tooting Bec Asylum Remembered-

by Philip Bradley

Plaque Unveiling And Book Launch

Saturday 27th September 2025

Tooting History Group members and residents of the Heritage Park Estate in Tooting have been researching the history of Tooting Bec Asylum/Hospital for the last eighteen months. Wandsworth Council have now agreed to erect a Green Plaque at the Estate to remember the hospital and it’s residents and staff. And Tooting History Group is publishing a book to record the history of the hospital to coincide with the unveiling,

The Green Plaque will be unveiled at 2pm on Saturday 27th September 2025. Part of the original wall to the Asylum is still there, by the pedestrian entrance to the Heritage Park Estate at the corner of Tooting Bec Road and Franciscan Road.

The book “Tooting Bec Asylum Remembered 1903-1995” by Karen Ellis-Rees and Annie Caulfield will be launched on the same day at the Pavilion, Tooting Bec Lido, Tooting Bec Road, SW16 1RU. We will be at the Pavilion (rear of Lido car park) from 3pm. (249/319 bus)

You will be able to buy a copy of the book for £5.

Tooting Bec Hospital Remembered

by Philip Bradley

Tooting Bec Hospital stood in the grounds of what is now the Heritage Park Estate on Tooting Bec Road between Franciscan Road and Church Lane. It was opened in 1903 by the Metropolitan Asylum Board and was designed to take the overflow of patients from their Caterham and Leavesden Asylums. At it’s peak, it accommodated over 2200 patients. It finally closed in 1995 and was sold and redeveloped as The Heritage Park Estate.

This talk will give a history of the Asylum as originally built and the changes in Mental Health provision that lead to it’s closure. People came to Tooting to work (and live) in the hospital from all over the world. Should there be plaques on the Heritage Park site to remember the hospital? Are you interested in an Oral History project connected with the hospital and it’s former patients and staff?

Come along to the All Saints Parish Church Hall (Bruce Hall) on Tuesday December 3rd at 7.30pm and hear all about this Tooting History Group/local residents project. (Entrance at rear of car park on Brudenell Road).