0:00 The first arrivals at Broadmoor
1:33 The law that created pleasure detention
3:26 Building a national asylum
8:51 Victorian patients and famous cases
13:53 Daily life, violence and escapes
32:29 The escape that changed Broadmoor
46:02 Jimmy Savile and a closed culture
53:31 A new hospital and an uncertain legacy

I follow Broadmoor from its first arrivals in 1863 to the high-security hospital it is today—and ask whether a place built as an alternative to the gallows could ever stop being a fortress.

I trace the asylum’s origins in the Criminal Lunatics Act, its Victorian design and daily life, and the patients whose stories shaped its reputation, including Richard Dadd, William Chester Miner, Christiana Edmonds and Peter Sutcliffe. I also examine escapes, the village sirens, and the long tension between treatment and confinement.

Finally, I look at the institution’s closed culture, the Jimmy Savile investigation, the move into a new hospital, the uncertain future of the Victorian buildings, and the archive that preserves the lives behind Broadmoor’s most famous names.