For decades St Clement's was the main psychiatric hospital for Ipswich and part of east Suffolk - and while it offered excellent and evolving care many in the town saw it as a slightly forbidding place.
But now that area off Foxhall Road has taken on a new life as the Ribbans Park and Belgrove Place housing scheme - a new development that has now been completed.
The former hospital itself has been turned into 48 homes called Belgrove Place, made up of townhouses, flats and duplex apartments. Only a few have yet to be sold.
The grounds of the former hospital now has 179 new houses built by Bovis Homes.
The estate is named after local architect WB Ribbans who designed the original hospital building - and some of the individual roads are named after people connected with the area.
One is named after well-known Czech poet Ivan Blatny who was treated at St Clement's for many years after he became a refugee in Britain after his homeland was taken over by the Communists in 1948.
St Clement's Hospital closed to patients in 2002 when a new unit was opened at Ipswich Hospital in Heath Road - but the building continued to be used as NHS offices until 2017 when its redevelopment began.
The work on the new homes in the grounds started in 2015 - but the golf course that was originally set up for NHS workers next to the grounds continues as a successful club. A bowls green and other sports facilities on the site have also been retained.
Jason Colmer from Bovis Homes said: “Ribbans Park has transformed a disused but historic site into an attractive new neighbourhood, as well as helping to address the shortage of housing in the local area.
“The painstaking and careful restoration of the main buildings of the hospital to create the Belgrove Place area of the development proved very popular with homebuyers.
“This attention to detail and sympathetic link to the past was carried through to the homes within the wider development which was named after the architect who designed the original Victorian buildings.”
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