High Royds Hospital

High Royds hospital is a now-closed psychiatric hospital in the village of Menston, Bradford, West Yorkshire. It was first opened on 8 October 1888, as the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum, and was closed on 25 February 2003.

The hospital once contained a library, a surgery, a dispensary, butchers, dairies, bakers, a sweetshop, an upholster's, a cobbler's, spacious grounds, a ballroom and even a railway. The patients lived in Nightingale wards (named after Florence Nightingale), rather than the individual accommodation found in the more recent mental health units.

More recently however it had been considered outdated, and as part of Leeds Mental Health's £47 million reprovision process it was closed, with the wards being relocated to various community mental health units in the City of Leeds, in the three years leading up to its closure. These include The Becklin Centre in St James' Hospital and The Mount in the city centre.

Since its closure, the site has been used as a film set for the film Asylum, as well as for the television series No Angels and Bodies.

There are now plans to convert the site into a new village, also called High Royds, retaining some features of the hospital, such as the ballroom and the clock tower.

Leeds band Kaiser Chiefs have written a song ('Highroyds') about the former hospital. Three of the band (Nick Hodgson, Nick 'Peanut' Baines and Simon Rix) used to attend St Mary's Roman Catholic Comprehensive School, the school that faces High Royds hospital.