These portraits were captured at The West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum in Yorkshire in the 1800’s. Built to keep the patients isolated from society, the hospital was self-sufficient with its own bakery, butchery, dairy, shop and laundry. I think these portraits have to be some of the most intriguing yet upsetting images my 28 year old eyes have ever encountered. Each portrait was labeled with the patient’s diagnosis, and the one that stuck out the most for me was ‘woman suffering from acute melancholia.’ The hospital was closed in 1995 and made into apartments. Just imagine how loudly the walls must talk.
Celebrating the strange and the shadowy, the damned and unseen 
I’d love to live in an old asylum! I bet the walls *do* talk, hehe. These photographs are wonderfully haunting, good find!
Meg, Optical Intake
Ditto! Wonderful blog by the way. š