Whitchurch Hospital Historical Society Exhibitions

21/02/2026

Happy to all

Here are some over the years from Whitchurch Hospital/ Cardiff City Mental Hospital

Thank you to Eve, Angela & Carol for the photos

14/02/2026

AI’s attempt at romance ♥️ what do you all think?
Three historical postcards, 1st from the early days and the other two from the First World War

14/02/2026

A selection of various photos related to love ♥️ & Connections Explore Your Archive

12/02/2026

This memory is well worth a read, a fabulous story about a First World War tablecloth stitched at the Welsh Metropolitan War Hospital (Whitchurch Hospital)

In this week's blog post, Costume Designer and Costume Society Trustee Ray Holman writes about the insights into a history of medical treatments for WWI soldiers treated in Cardiff, unveiled by an unassuming tablecloth bought at an antiques market. The cloth is now part of the St Fagan's National Mu...

10/02/2026

A lovely memory to look back on…

A marriage ❤️ announcement for Thomas McClean & Florence Raynes. Matron Raynes worked at the Cardiff Mental Hospital from 1908 until her marriage. Thomas was admitted to the hospital during the First World War and we believe this is how they met.

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WESTERN Mail Monday, March 3rd 1919.

A marriage ❤️ announcement for Thomas McClean & Florence Raynes. Matron Raynes worked at the Cardiff Mental Hospital from 1908 until her marriage. Thomas was admitted to the hospital during the First World War and we believe this is how they met.

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WESTERN Mail Monday, March 3rd 1919.

03/02/2026

Fantastic resource for research, than you for all the hard work you put into County Asylums

When the 1st incarnation of the county asylums website went offline in 2013 not only did a vast chunk of info and photos disappear but unfortunately when we went to relaunch the new site we found the sites original domain name - countyasylums.com - had been 'sniped' by an individual who would try to sell us the domain over the following 10 years for values ranging from initially $20,000 to a last ditch offer of $1000. We said no every time.

As many of you know we run this site off our own backs, between the five of us, and have covered the costs of hosting since launch. We're not going to ask for donations, we prefer to share the cost between ourselves and keep it simple.

Come 2024 the original domain name was finally dropped by its chancer owner and we excitedly though we might get it back. Our mistake was to search to see when it expired using the GoDaddy website. Godaddy themselves promptly re-registered it within a millisecond of it being 'released'. Safe to say we'll never use them for anything to do with domains or hosting ever again.

It was again put up for sale for $5000 and we gave up thinking we'd ever get it back.

Therefore we were very surprised when after only a year it was dropped and not sniped by anyone else a few days ago allowing us to purchase it for less than a tenner and finally get our original domain back.

We hope it'll allow visitors who remembered the old address to find us again!

We'd like to thank you for all your continued support, emails, photos, stories and many other items of interest you've sent us - we will continue to update the site and evolve to even bigger things in future years.

To date we've worked with the Science Museum, BBC, The Mental Health Museum Wakefield, Swansea Bay NHS Trust, Whitchurch Historical Society and the Horton Cemetery Project. We've given talks to local museums, photography clubs and even WI groups.

Our inbox is always open should you wish to enquire if we can come and talk about a certain asylum or just a general overview of the county asylum act - info@countyasylums.co.uk

25/01/2026

Happy 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Old newspaper clipping (apologies I didn’t note the references) where Miss Jean Dumble takes part:

“and Miss Jean Dumble, Assistant matron, Whitchurch Hospital, replies”

23/01/2026

Below is an example of one of the many postcards in the collection. This one is written by William Dean who was a patient at the Welsh Metropolitan War Hospital