Aerial View

c1920s

This view looking west over The Colony shows Gott's Monument three quarters right near the horizon.
In 1893 the National Society for the Employment of Epileptics established a Colony here to provide care and employment for epileptic patients from all over Britain.  The Society had itself been established in London two years previously by a group of doctors from the Hospital for the Paralysed and the Epileptic and by philanthropists, to provide such patients with an occupation, especially in the open air, so that they would be useful and able to perform practical work.  At this time many epileptics were placed in workhouses or mental asylums due to difficulties they had in being able to earn a living because of their condition.