In order to get ready for Halloween Carlow Cornice & Mouldings has dived  deep in to the dark depths of the internet to find some pretty scary places, with beautiful cornice, centrepieces and plaster work.

This is Denbigh Asylum, or North Wales Hospital, completed in 1848 it could room 200 patients with psychiatric illnesses. Victorian asylums is frequently featured in horror movies and novels, I can’t help to be fascinated by the beauty of the architecture in the places were they put to most marginalized people in society. As much as we love restoring old buildings and get out all the detail of the plaster work, I’m happy I don’t have to get on to this site. The hospital didn’t close until the mid 1990’s and performed lobotomy on patients well in to the 1940’s. Oh, and it is supposedly  haunted to.

 

Take flight to Germany, and have a look at another institution. This is the Military Hospital in Beelitz, Germany. The hospital started as a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients and became a military hospital in the First World War. This is were Adolf Hitler was treated for a leg wound acquired in 1916.

Looks like the setting of a romantic movie, unfortunately I’d say it contains more amputated limbs and gangrene…

Happy not to be on that examination table. More than likely the ceiling would have been framed by some ornate cornice.

Truly hauntingly beautiful. You can still make out the fantastic detailed plastered ceiling.

Perhaps to beauty of the ornate cornice and plaster mouldings helped with the healing process?

Moving down on the continent, take a trip to Chateau Miranda in Belgium. A Neo-Gothic castle, it has been abandoned since 1991, and the owning family is refusing financial aid to restore this once orphanage, wonder why…

Look at this two fantastic rooms, the plaster finished arches, so typical for the architectural period. The fantastic details framing the windows can easily be done in plaster, if any reader is after some Gothic-revival!

Let’s finish up with what Halloween has come to be about; fun, games and horror!

Here are some abandoned amusement parks to help you sleep at night

Spree Park Berlin

Gullivers Kingdom Yamanashi Japan

Six Flags; New Orleans

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