About this Project

In March 2010, we were lucky enough to be able to salvage the contents of the former Runwell Hospital, near Wickford, Essex. Regal Group removed all associated equipment in the preserved projection room.

Runwell Hospital was operated by South Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, since February 2008 Runwell Hospital has provided only Forensic mental health services in line with the trusts reprovision programme and the closure of the current Runwell Hospital.

Runwell Hospital is approximately 30 miles (50 km) East of London and can be reached via the road network, or by train (taking about 40 minutes). Runwell Hospital falls within the District of Chelmsford along with Springfield and South Woodham Ferrers.

Following the ending of contracts accommodating patients at the Essex county's Brentwood mental hospital, joint facilities were developed between East Ham and Southend-on-sea boroughs. A site was chosen at Runwell Hall farm, to the east of the town of Wickford and the firm of Elcock and Sutcliffe were chosen as architects to the site, the former having previously designed the new Bethlem Royal hospital at Monks orchard. Elcock and Sutcliffe were at the forefront of institutional design and when completed, Runwell was seen as being pioneering development in mental hospital compared to its contemporaries.

View from Projection Room Port Hole

Projection Room - Smoke Extraction System

The Equipment re-assembled after removing equipment

We would like to thank everyone at Runwell Hospital for their assistance and for allowing us to go in and remove the equipment.

We would also like to thank Duncan Stewart for contacting us about this project.

The removal of this installation was carried out by:

Sam Whitehead (Left), Adam Pearson (Centre) and Alex Cooper (Right)