Medfield State Hospital

Medfield State Hospital is a 426-acre campus on Castle Hill, northwest of Medfield center, founded in 1892 as the Medfield Insane Asylum to care for chronic and incurable patients. Boston architect William Pitt Wentworth designed the first buildings in the Queen Anne style, using red brick, slate roofs and corbelled cornices. Small and medium-sized wards face a rectangular central green that holds the chapel, kitchen and dining halls, giving the campus the look of a college or a New England town common. It was the state's first facility built for long-term chronic patients and the first insane hospital laid out on the cottage plan. Later buildings from the early twentieth century, by firms such as Park & Kendall and Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, add Classical Revival and Craftsman designs. Farmland, woodland, a cemetery and a pre-existing farmhouse of about 1840 complete the grounds. The campus was recognized for its architecture and its role in the history of mental health care, with a period of significance from 1892 to 1940.