The hospital, which was designed by Benjamin Jacobs using a dual courtyard layout, opened as the Derby Borough Asylum in November 1888.[1][2] An additional block was completed in 1891, a private annex for fee-paying patients, known as Albany House, was added in 1903 and a nurses' home, known as Bramble House, was completed in 1931.[1] It became Derby Mental Hospital in 1912 and Kingsway Hospital in 1938 before joining the National Health Service in 1948.[1]
After the introduction of Care in the Community in the early 1980s, the hospital went into a period of decline and patient numbers reduced significantly.[1] In the late 1990s eleven men died in unusual circumstances at the hospital: an inquiry led by Sir Richard Rougier found that food and drink had been deliberately withheld.[3] The hospital finally closed in December 2009.[1] Most of the buildings have since been demolished and the site redeveloped by Kier Group as Manor Kingsway.[1] Bramble House, one of the few surviving buildings, was sold for commercial development in 2018.[4]
