Norman's Riding Hospital

Sometimes, things are so obvious that you never notice them. And I mean - obvious.

Most horror authors write stories about areas they know. Lots of the actual stories are set in hospitals of different types. So, I'm looking for places to set scenarios in and I'm generally using traditional Lovecraft settings. Few days in hospital and I'm setting up stories with a hospital setting without thinking...

Let's put it this way.

For 13 years from the age of 5 until I went to Uni (and thereafter home for holiday periods) I lived in a small isolation hospital, a mile away from the nearest village down a country road and surrounded on three sides by woods... Come on, I LIVED in a perfect horror setting... and just really thought of it. I mean, an example - I always knew when someone died there because their body would be kept in the morgue and I wasn't allowed to play there... I gather there was a thing where, as part of training, doctors were supposed to spend the night alone in the morgue with a dead body (to test ability to cope with death?) - how could anybody consider that to be a test??? - I mean, bodies, morgues... normal.

Sarissa do this manor house, ideal for the central building. It used to be a University building in Newhaven.

So, it won't be accurate in any way whatsoever, but I've started setting it up. Which was a mistake of course. Because once I've got the photos I need to take it all down and set up photos for the Five Hounds story - though I still need to find the hounds for that. Which I can't really look for because it would involve lifting and I'm banned from that for at least the next four weeks. Possibly something to do with letting the 4" deep hole in my body heal a bit where they did the kidney biopsy.

I think mdf buildings are light enough to let me lift them...

Trouble is, of course, I spent nearly a year setting up Newhaven and can see this just taking over completely. Guess that's how it goes.

Just found this picture taken from behind the wards - everything I've done is the front part. Found it here.

OK, top of picture, left side looking at it Porter's Lodge (my little home still doesn't get in!), then Nurses Home, then the garages and engineering areas, etc. The chimney of the boiler house can be seen top right. My pulp version doesn't have the wards or the hospital gardens to the right - vegetables, the place had two gardners and produced much of it's own vegetables. For lovers of hot food... not a good idea to be in those far wards. The kitchens were at the far side of that H Block building and originally pulled to the wards by a porter on an unmotorised hand trolley...