An abandoned former psychiatric hospital which appeared on the front cover of David Bowie’s 1970 album The Man Who Sold The World is to be redeveloped into 675 new homes.
The conversion of Cane Hill Hospital in Coulsdon, which is owned by the GLA and Barratt, has been given the green light by Mayor Boris Johnson after being approved by Croydon council. The hospital, in which Charlie Chaplin’s mother was a patient, has been unused since 1991 and parts of it burnt down in 2010.
In addition to the album cover, the hospital inspired the Bowie hit All The Madmen, a tribute to his half-brother who was a patient there.
The developers will have to provide only 24 per cent affordable housing in the scheme. Eighty per cent of the new homes will have three or more bedrooms.
A spokesman for Barratt Homes said: “We will continue our work with the local authority, residents and stakeholders to ensure that we deliver a sustainable community on this prominent site which fits in with the surrounding landscape.”
The main buildings at Cane Hill were designed by Charles Henry Howell, consultant architect to the Commissioners in Lunacy, and built on a hill-top site overlooking Farthing Downs in 1882.
