Leybourne Grange
Opened: 1936
Architect: Samuel Whitfield Daukes (Original Manor House). Colony buildings by Major WH Robinson.
Patients: 1200
Closed: Closure started 1992
Leybourne Grange covers an extensive 270 acres and was once home to 1200 patients with various degrees of mental disability.
Administration was housed in an old manor house which is now totally boarded and alarmed probably because of marble floors and an ornate staircase which supposedly lies within.
Patients lived in a total of 27 villas which split them into male, female and 
children as well as by the level of their deficiency, to cater for the patients there was a swimming pool and gym a concert hall which I think doubled as a place of worship there being no obvious chapel on the grounds and a sick hospital complete with x-ray room.
The colony was designed to be completely self sufficient with its own farm, industrial laundry huge boiler house with enormous water tanks, a kitchen garden and workshops. There were houses for married staff and a large nurses block too.
Later additions included a social recreation centre a hairdressers and a school for 16-20 year olds on the edge of the site which is still in use.
In 1992 the colony began to implement closure with patients gradually leaving until total closure in 1996. Today the buildings are facing demolition due to the need for new housing in the area.
Walking around the site you start to realise the enormity of the place and the fact that the landscape 
surrounding it was supposed to be beneficial to the patients.
The boiler house is probably one if not the largest I have ever seen. Most things are still in situ giving the feeling that one day the staff just walked out forever. The laundry is still complete with the machines which staff and 
patients used to operate.
The best feature for me had to be the clock tower which obviously predates the colony, in the buildings below are service and maintenance areas. The clock tower itself can be accessed from a loft hatch and inside has no internal floors just scaffolding (and vast amounts of pigeon poo) and oddly placed ladders which take you right up to the roof giving a fantastic view of the colony.