St Lawrence’s Asylum
Architect: John Foulston ( Radial Building )
Patients : 1500 (500 in 1860)
Closed : Closure stared early mid 1990’s. Last section closed in 2002
Other : Some of the former hospital has been demolished to make way for a £4.3 million Business Park
The radial building was the first to be opened in 1820 and catered for 120 patients, it was based on a wheel with the administration area in the centre so that staff could keep a watchful eye on patients with just a glance, one of the first area of the hospital to close it is now luxury flats.
Now it is only Foster Hall, the Carew building and the old isolation hospital standing on the site. Carew originally opened in 1867 for the care of private patients. Later on contained the wards Allen (male) and Newlyn (female), it is now closed and boarded waiting for an investor to pay £1,200,000 for it. The old isolation hospital also known as The Harrison Building closed in 2003 and now stands empty.
The Foster building is was built between 1902 and 1906 and was originally built to cater for 290 male patients and contains all of the aspects that you would expect from an Asylum of the time, large kitchens, maintenance
areas, wards joined by connecting corridors, an ornate admin and a stunning main hall.
The foster building also houses the Lovney ward within it which was a high dependency Psychiatric ward, this was a VERY secure ward, there were only 4 
beds within the main section and two of those were secure rooms, one large and one small, which had steel doors with locks in the frame and no handles on the inside, even the windows had been covered with Perspex to prevent a patient harming themselves of trying to escape!
The future plans for the Foster Building appear to indicate the retention of the Main Hall and at least part of the complex as a performance centre and conference space this is still in the planning stage but it would be a good solution for preserving the hall and the architecture.