45 Hospital Rd., Medfield, Massachusetts. County/parish: Norfolk.
Added to the National Register of Historic Places January 21, 1994. NRIS 93001481.
53 contributing buildings. 11 contributing sites. 13 contributing structures. 1 contributing object.Also known as:
Medfield State Hospital, originally the Medfield Insane Asylum, is a historic former psychiatric hospital complex at 45 Hospital Road in Medfield, Massachusetts. The asylum was established in 1892 as the state's first facility for dealing with chronic mental patients. The college-like campus was designed by William Pitt Wentworth and developed between 1896 and 1914, after an era dominated by asylums built using the Kirkbride Plan. Medfield Insane Asylum was the first asylum built using the new Cottage Plan layout, where patients were integrated into a small community to work a specific job, rather than being confined to cells. It was formally renamed "Medfield State Hospital" in 1914.
The complex included 58 buildings at its height on a property of some 1.4 sq mi (3.6 km2), and a capacity of 2,200 patients. It raised its own livestock and produce, and generated its own heat, light, and power. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994, but the property was closed in April 2003 and the buildings were shuttered with the exception of a building at the rear of the campus which was occupied by the State Parole Board until 2006. The grounds have been restored and opened to the public and are open every day from sun up to sundown. It has been used as a filming location for thriller and horror motion pictures such as The New Mutants, Shutter Island, and The Box. The Clark Building was demolished in 2012. Local Medfield Police now patrol the facility. Trespassing is strictly forbidden past dark.
Within the grounds of the hospital lies the Medfield State Hospital Cemetery which has 841 gravesites. This cemetery was opened from 1918 until 1988. Only numbers were on the graves until a Boy Scout from Troop 89 made it his Eagle Scout service project to find the names and dates of death of all those buried in the cemetery.
The Odyssey House, the Carriage House, and the Laundry Building were demolished in 2013.
(read more...)National Park Service documentation: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63792480