The site was selected at Prestwich Woods and acquired from Oswald Milne, a solicitor, in 1847.

[2] It was built of red brick with stone quoin decoration and officially opened, with 350 patients, as the Second Lancashire County Lunatic Asylum in January 1851.

[3] Montagu Lomax, assistant medical officer at the hospital between 1917 and 1919, exposed the inhuman, custodial and antitherapeutic practices there in his book The Experiences of an Asylum Doctor, which led to a Royal Commission, increased central control and ultimately the Mental Treatment Act 1930.

[4][5] The National Asylum Workers' Union organised a strike of 200 employees at the hospital in 1918.

[7][8] However, following the introduction of Care in the Community in the early 1980s, the hospital went into a period of decline and closed to long-term patients in 1996.