To get inside this youth correctional facility, you had to be buzzed in the main door and wait for it to close before a second door would open. The facility stopped taking in youths in 2018 due to a decrease in the number of youths being sentenced to secure custody. The facility remained open for over a year with zero youths, paid for by the province until the facility announced they were closing for good. The youths weren’t actually locked inside the cells, they were able to come and go as they wanted. The doors were locked on the outside…

This Canadian Forces Base opened in July of 1941 where radar operators were trained. Personnel came from the UK, United States and of course Canada. The site closed in 1971. As of 2016, a few buildings remain including the barracks.

Scattered across Ontario are similar looking Ontario Provincial Police detachments many of which are aging amd prone to issues such as flooding and mold. These detachments are slowly being replaced with modernized buildings.Woodstock (Norwich Township to be exact) is home to one such outdated detachment that closed in 2007. Up until mid-2007 the electricity was still active although the building had been vacated. Uncomfirmed reports indicate that flooding in the basement forced the OPP to close the detachment.Vandals began to take notice of this abandoned location and at some point a window was broken allowing access inside and from there…

Sir WIlliam GageIn 1895, Sir William Gage and his associates wanted to establish the first tuberculosis sanitarium of it’s kind in Canada. After visiting TB sanitariums in Europe and America, the philanthropist Gage had an idea that Canada should have its own TB sanitarium. Gage, who grew up in Brampton, Ontario was the wealthy president of W.J. Gage Publishing. He approached the city of Toronto with a $25,000 contribution to help build a TB sanitarium. The city turned down his offer partly due to fears associated with such a TB facility. At the time it was believed that TB was…

The Hamilton Asylum for the Insane was originally intended to be an asylum for inebriates (people with alcohol issues). The community was becoming concerned by people who appeared to be disoriented and wandering the streets. Society often thought people who had mental health issues were drunk, not understanding that the problems were not alcohol related.By 1887 the number of drunken people was so few that the decision was made to house “lunatics”. The Hamilton Asylum for the Insane opened in March of 1876. It was situated on 529 acres of land in Hamilton. The asylum was the sixth of it’s…

Exploring an abandoned psychiatric hospital with morgue in St. Thomas, Ontario Introduction In August of 1937 construction began on a hospital in St. Thomas, Ontario which became known as the Ontario Government Hospital, St. Thomas. It was built on land belonging to six farm families. The 460 acres of land was able to provide crops for the facility’s food and produce. The hospital opened on April 1, 1939 and took in its first 32 patients. By August the number of patients was close to 1,100 people. The maximum capacity is said to have been reached in 1958 with 2,238 patients….

The Midwestern Regional Centre was one of nineteen Regional Centres located across Ontario built to care for developmentally challenged patients. The first centre built in Ontario was the Huronia Regional Centre in Orillia; other institutions included the Muskoka Regional Centre, Thistletown Regional Centre and Southwestern Regional Centre. The Midwestern Regional Centre opened on September 1, 1963. It was situated on 164 acres of land just outside Palmerston, Ontario. The main building was 167,000 square feet with several outbuildings on the property.The facility was self sufficient – it had it’s own water wells and pumping station and waste was pumped out…

The building was first constructed in 1939 by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart to be used as a monastery. Food was provided by a local farm belonging to Alexandre Martel. In 1953 the monastery was sold to the Brothers of Christian Instruction and renamed to the Maison Notre Dame de La Chesnaie. An inscription in the main entrance floor displays their motto: “Ad Sinite parvulos venire Me” which means “Let come the children to me.” On December 25, 1959 three young men between the ages of 8 to 10 were killed by a fire at the institute which was…

The London Psychiatric Hospital grounds now consists of 23 buildings including the Chapel of Hope church, horse stable and infirmary building.The London Asylum for the Insane opened in 1870. In 1869, the provincial legislature provided $100,000 in funding to build the asylum. The asylum was built upon 300 acres of land in what is now known as Highbury Avenue. The asylum was ready to accept patients in November of 1870.The main building featured a number of wards for different patients. There were wards for paying patients and free wards. The paid wards offered more comfortable surroundings and private rooms at…