[1] Breakdown of the union led to Herefordshire providing its own asylum located close to the County Town of Hereford.

The facility was designed by architect Robert Griffiths, County Surveyor of Staffordshire,[1] and the construction, which cost £87,873, started in 1868.

[3] The asylum appears to have been a well-run establishment and seems to have met with the approval of the Committee of Visitors in the years leading up to 1889.

Stanhope, expressed his satisfaction that "since the Asylum was opened, there is no record of any death of a homicidal or suicidal character; a fact testifying to the careful supervision exercised over the patients.

[1] It joined the National Health Service in 1948 and was subsequently renamed St. Mary's Hospital, taking its name from the local parish church, in the 1930s.