Opposite the Chapel is the location of one quadrant of the original ornamental garden. The mastermind behind the development of the Warneford grounds and gardens was the Rev. Vaughan Thomas, who was chair of the Warneford Management Committee for over 30 years. Working alongside the asylum’s architect, Richard Ingleman, Thomas engaged in extensive correspondence with medical superintendents of established asylums and other experts to optimise the Warneford’s outdoor spaces, according to the principles of moral treatment. These principles, developed at the Quaker-run ‘Retreat’ at York, became the most influential model for the management of nineteenth-century asylums, and influenced the design of both buildings and grounds.
Asylum gardens were important therapeutic spaces where patients took exercise, relaxed, worked and socialised. Featuring an ornamental lay-out, with lawns, paths, and borders in the country-house style, there were separate gardens for men and women. The boundaries were either fenced, walled or hedged and the gardens decorated with statues and urns.
The space is now where patients engage in horticultural therapy, using the polytunnel for planting and cultivation.
Image: Vaughan Thomas’ original annotated plan for the garden/photograph showing the original greenhouse
