In the news for all the wrong reasons a few years ago, and the subject of Channel 4 docu-drama The Cure in 2019, Stafford General’s least important failing is its ugliness. It was built in the late 1970s and replaced the magnificent Hospital for the Insane. This was a private asylum for “the middle and upper classes” and had been sited on Coton Hill, Stafford, in order that its 150 or so patients could benefit from therapeutic rural views.

Opened in 1854, Coton Hill had a library, billiard room, music room, small theatre, chapel, and the outside facilities included terraced gardens, a cricket pitch, tennis courts, an orchard and a home farm. In the 20th century, a dance hall and cinema were added. The asylum was closed in 1975 and demolished in 1976, although the chapel and lodges are still standing.

Below (from top to bottom): The Builder magazine’s sketch of the brand-new hospital;
an aerial shot taken in the 1930s; and the cover of a promotional brochure from around the same time.