A Place in the Country Three Counties Asylum 1860-1999

In the mid-1850s, the counties of Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire set about looking for a site for a new asylum to house their 'pauper lunatics'. Two hundred acres of farmland at Stotfold on the Hertfordshire—Bedfordshire border were purchased and in March 1860 the first patients were admitted to the new Three Counties Asylum (TCA). The asylum was in operation for almost a century and a half and, as approaches to treating mental illness changed, so did TCA.

Judith Pettigrew is a social anthropologist and an occupational therapist with a PhD from the University of Cambridge. She is a senior lecturer in the Department of Clinical Therapies at the University of Limerick. Rory Reynolds is a systemic family psychotherapist in CAMHS Bedfordshire. Alongside his mental health work, Rory runs a successful theatre company and is the longstanding artistic director of the Queen Mother Theatre in Hitchin. Sandra Rouse is also a social anthropologist with a PhD from the University of Cambridge.