An occupational therapist who helped close Cane Hill Hospital has written a history of the Victorian pauper lunatic asylum.

Pam Buttrey’s book Cane Hill Hospital: The Tower on the Hill, was published in December.

The asylum was opened in 1883 to house 1,150 “pauper lunatics” and treated mentally ill patients for the next 115 years until it was finally shut down in 1992.

By the time the First World War broke out, there were more than 2,400 patients at the asylum, an increasing number of whom were soldiers, suffering from syphilis and driven mad by their experiences in the trenches.

In 2009, Mrs Buttrey and hsitory enthusiast Adrian Falks discovered a number of WWI soldiers who had died at the asylum lay buried in an unmarked grave, their contribution to the war effort forgotten by history.

The Croydon Guardian launched a campaign to have their names added to the Debt of Honour, an international tribute to the men who died during, or as a direct result of, the war.

During the conflict, patriotism in the hospital was at an all time high.

Mrs Buttrey said: “With wartime conditions, nurses petitioned to have Irish stew and hotpot taken off the menu, while male attendants refused Scotch pickled herrings and accepted cold roast beef instead.”

She also writes about how the treatment of patients changed over the years.

When Cane Hill opened, the main emphasis was on healthy air, a good diet and a full working day to distract patients from their illness and maintain their work skills. In 1900, 39 per cent of admissions were discharged as recovered while 61 per cent of the patients went out each week in the grounds or the neighbourhood.

However, from 1900 onwards, freedom became increasingly restricted until only a handful of male patients, and no women, went beyond the gates in the 1920s.

Mrs Buttrey said: “This book would not have been possible without all the records in Croydon Local Archives and the London Metropolitan Archives. With possible cutbacks, such research will become very difficult in the future.”

Cane Hill Hospital: The Tower on the Hill, Aubrey Warsash Publishing, costs £11.