Founded as an asylum in 1904, Storthes Hall in Kirkburton treated patients for 87 years.

In the early part of the 20th century, part of the hospital was devoted to treating shell-shocked World War One soldiers, but most of the patients were 'pauper lunatics' who were detained under the Lunacy Act 1890.

The hall was also home to women who were locked up for having children out of wedlock. They had to spend the rest of their lives there.

Former nurse June Rawlinson, who worked there in the mid 1970s, told the Examiner in 2013: "They had been there so long they had become institutionalised. They had no-one on the outside and nowhere to go – it was really sad. They would brew the tea and push a brush around.

“It had got to the stage where they didn’t know anything differently – that was their life.”

But June said the patients were very well looked after.

She said: "They were given good care and had a good standard of living with entertainment too. There was a huge ballroom and they regularly had parties and tea dances.

"On the wards we put music on and would get the patients dancing or playing bingo. I think a lot were pretty happy with their lot."

Huddersfield Light Opera Company put on free shows at the hospital, staged on Sundays after they had done a week-long run at Huddersfield Theatre Royal. They put on The Girlfriend in 1953, Me And My Girl in 1954 and Quaker Girl in 1955. The shows carried on until 1960.

Former plumber Bob Tomlinson, who worked at Storthes Hall in the 1960s, told the Examiner in 2013: “When we went on the acute wards we always went in twos.

“Every time we went through a door we had to make sure we locked it afterwards.

“The dance hall was massive and it had its own organ. Storthes Hall also had its own farm, gardens and greenhouses where it grew its own produce. It had its own water supply which I think ran from a well at the top of Storthes Hall Lane.”

One of his jobs was to wind the tower clock on a Saturday morning.

He said: "To get up to the clock involved a lot of steps and then a step ladder, and then we wound the mechanism up using a big key. It used to take around half-an-hour and had to be done every week."

After the hospital's closure the site was bought by the University of Huddersfield which turned part of it into student accommodation, which has since been sold to a private company.

Parts of the site have also been used for football training by Huddersfield Town.

Eight years ago proposals to build a care home and 300 bungalows for the over 60s on the site were put in, but the plans have been dogged by a wrangle over affordable housing.

The developers vowed to keep the hospital’s clock tower – the only surviving building since the hospital's 1991 closure – and said they would restore it.

In October, planning consultant David Storrie said the developers were hoping to start work in 18 months to two years.

Share your memories of Storthes Hall by emailing andrew.hirst@examiner.co.uk.