MANY moons ago in the South Wales valleys if someone enquired after someone and were told that the person in question had “gone to Abergavenny,” then it meant something very different than to what it does today.

The phrase “gone to Abergavenny” was a metaphor for going insane and being committed to Pen-y-Fal Lunatic Asylum - the sprawling Tudor Gothic style building which overlooked and cast a shadow over the Gateway to Wales for well over a century.

Today of course, the once notorious ‘madhouse’ has been converted into a homely housing estate, but for many, the history of Pen-y-Fal, what it symbolised, and the largely forgotten tales of the thousands of poor souls who passed through its imposing doors, have left an indelible mark.

One Abergavenny man who is fascinated by the history of Pen-y-Fal is former psychiatric nurse and lecturer David Bowen, who worked at the hospital from 1965 until its closure in 1996.

Over the decades, Dai has built up probably the biggest collection of pictures, historic documents, and individual case histories of Pen-y-Fal that exist anywhere in the world.

When Pen-y-Fal finally closed its doors for the last time on August 17, 1996, Dai held a photographic history exhibition to mark its closure.Originally known as the Joint Counties Lunatic Asylum, and later the Monmouthshire Mental Hospital, Pen-y-Fal was erected in 1851 as a consequence of the 1845 Lunacy Act which ruled that counties and boroughs all over the UK had to provide accommodation for the mentally ill.

Originally intended to house a maximum of 210 patients, the hospital was catering for well over twice that number by 1867 and subsequent extensions to the main hospital entailed that eventually Pen-y-Pal housed a staggering 1,170 inmates and covered 24 acres of ground.

The stigma and lack of knowledge surrounding mental illness was extremely primitive in the early days of Pen-y-Fal, and postnatal depression, alcoholism, senile dementia, or even infidelity which was then classed as ‘moral insanity’ were grounds enough to have you committed indefinitely.

However, as Dai is quick to point out, “What many people fail to remember is that nearly all the patients who ended up in Pen-y-Fal, especially during the early days, were put there by their own family.

“All they needed was two doctors willing to sign certificates of insanity, and embarrassing or inconvenient relatives could be detained for God knows how many years.”

In particular woman, especially women with little money and of low social status were prime candidates for a tenure in Pen-y-Fal and similar Victorian establishments.

‘Hysteria’ is taken from the Latin word for ‘womb’ and many medical men of the Victorian era were gung-ho to identify hysteria in all forms of female behaviour - such as excited chattering with friends for example.

Erotomania (hypersexuality) was also considered a constant danger in female patients of the Victorian era and was thought to accompany hysteria.

In 1855 a report by a medical superintendent at Pen-y-Fal reveals that since June 23, 1854, over 129 patients were admitted. 63 of them were subsequently discharged and over 45 died. One cause of death in an epileptic patient was returned by a coroner as ‘Died by the visitation of God.’

The report also states that the asylum currently housed 115 men and 151 women and although the male patients were generally tranquil, several of the women were disorderly.

The document also shows that epilepsy and ‘causes unknown’ far outweighed all other forms of admission, which included, desertion, disease of brain, disappointed love, drink, fright, grief and over anxiety of mind, hereditary and congenital causes, injury to head from falls and other violence, jealousy, pride, and religious subjects.

Dai told the Chronicle, “When I started in 1965, Pen-y-Fal was a lot different to when the first ever patient, Timothy Matthews from Hereford, walked through the doors, but it still was a place where a lot of troubled souls suffered terribly.

“Having said that, Pen-y-Fal embodied the changes in the philosophy of treatment in regard to mental illness.

“In the early years they would seek to control the patients with chains, shackles, ECT and brute force, but in the latter years there was less emphasis on control and more on care and cure via counselling and drugs.

“Consequently, the only logical conclusion to a place like Pen-y-Fal was to close it down in favour of ‘care in the community’. A scheme which in many ways was the only ‘happy ending’ to the years of darkness and ignorance surrounding mental illness.

“Now, Instead of locking people away with other ‘mad’ people so we can conveniently forget about them or pretend they don’t exist, they can now, thanks to significant advancements in psychiatry and understanding, live in ‘our’ world.”

This article was first published in the Abergavenny Chronicle in 2012 and later republished in ‘Secret Abergavenny’ in 2016.