Herrison Hospital

Located four miles north of Dorchester the village of Charlton Down has been developed from the site of Herrison Hospital, an old Victorian Mental Hospital. In 1920 it became the Dorset County Mental Hospital, and in 1940 was renamed Herrison Hospital.

Herrison Hospital, was self contained with all facilities including a church, sports facilities, allotments for growing their own food, radio station, Gothic Chapel, and social centre. The Herrison Hospital bus was an unusual but frequent daily service, unusual in that it was not operated under a road service licence and neither were the buses PSV-licenced. Instead the buses displayed official discs indicating that they were exempt from road tax. Strictly speaking the service was for patients, staff and visitors to the hospital, but there was a lively local trade between Dorchester and the housing estates at Charminster.

The N.H.S. pulled out of Herrison in 1992 and Bellway Homes bought the plot and later sold off the 3 large buildings for conversion into apartments by a private developer.