Inside Severalls Asylum, Essex

Empty corridors, rotten walls, wind hissing between the jagged glass of broken window panes - Severalls Hospital seems to whisper with its own chilling history.

The 300-acre site, built in May 1913 to house some 2,000 patients at any one time, was more than a psychiatric ward - it was a complete community, designed so that no one would ever need to leave.

Inside the now deserted, decaying shell, psychiatrists were once free to test their new treatments without any restrictions on patients at the mental hospital in Colchester, Essex.

Derelict: Wind whistles down the corridors of Severalls Hospital in Colchester, Essex

Empty: The 300-acre site was designed in 1910 by architect Frank Whitmore, with most buildings in characteristic Edwardian Queen Anne Style and opened in May 1913

Treatment: Psychiatrists in Edwardian times had free rein to test cures on patients, including methods such as electro-convulsive therapy and frontal lobotomy, that would be considered inhuman today

Chilling: The hospital was fully equipped with its own mortuary and - at the time - state-of-the-art body fridges

Maze: The wards, offices and other services were easily accessible via a system of interconnecting corridors that meant staff could get quickly from patient to patient

Abandoned: The hospital was closed in 1997, although a small section stayed open for the treatment of patients suffering the side effects of serious strokes

Broken: The hospital site was sold in 2008 and has since been allowed to crumble into disrepair

Community: The hospital site included its own farms supplying food, a purpose-built bakery, laundry and even produced its own electricity

Room on the ward: Some 2,000 patients could be cared for at Severalls Hospital at one time while it was fully operational

Still living: Pigeons now nest in the deserted hospital, which has become of increasing interest to 'urban explorers' who come into the hospital to take photographs

Equipped: Although many objects that were used in the hospital have been looted, some, such as a bathtub and rusted water pipes, still remain

Scorched: A fire alarm button, warped by heat after it was burned inside the abandoned hospital