Mayor’s Speech –  Blue Plaque Commemorating Stansfield View Hospital in Todmorden

Stansfield View has been an institution within our valley life. 

After the 1834 Poor Law Act, Todmorden resisted for forty years demands to establish a workhouse until its eventual construction, with its own story, right here where we are standing.

In our time, most families with roots in the town will have one connection or another to the hospital that succeeded it.

My own relations worked there in the 1980s. 

It is part of our shared memory. 

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And it is that word, “memory”, that brings us here today. 

Everyone touched by the hospital remembers its legacy in their own way. 

Those memories are varied, and it is by no means for me to presume what they may be. 

But it is important that those memories and acts of remembrance are validated. 

That validation is encouraged by inclusive and, quite possibly, cathartic acts such as this:

A permanent, physical reminder of what in our lifetimes was once here. 

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While there are many things in our collective past that would be easy to forget, we should not shy away from the discomfort that reflection brings; rather, it is part of an inheritance to be welcomed.  One of acceptance, commemoration and, perhaps, of a better future for our generation and the next. 

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It has been thirty years since Stansfield View hospital closed its doors. 

But there are people who lived and worked there whose relevance to the story has not diminished with the passing of time. 

This small, blue gesture bears witness to your memories.