by Narrator » Wed Dec 29, 2021 3:06 am
Located in Epsom and Ewell, The Center took just over an hour to drive to from Maldon.
Diego and Chase's research lead them to discover that in another life, the Center was the previous site of five different mental asylums referred to as 'The Epsom Cluster'. Designed upon 1,000 acres of land in what was previously known as Epsom, the five facilities that comprised the Epsom Cluster were considered the pride of the London County Council, and a blight upon Epsom by the locals. In it's heyday, the Epsom Cluster had a higher population than the city of Epsom itself, but like all asylums, as the understanding of the human condition improved, so did the number of patients in asylum.
While CRUA maintained a healthy amount of the land that the Epsom Cluster was built on, the other hospitals were sold off by the government to other investors and repurposed for other uses, as the borough of Epsom and Ewell sprung up around the land over the progression of years.
The place they arrived was downright stately in terms of land space, and was rivaling the University in terms of size. but the way in which patients seemed to mill about the grounds at their own leisure suggested that the days of pinning people up in cells and straight jackets had abandoned this place some time ago. Not unlike the students of Xavier's, the patients of CRUA were gated in, though one would get the impression leaving of their own accord wasn't as easy for them as it was for the students.
Still, The Center seemed to operate as if they had little to hide at all. Visitor parking was just outside the gatehouse for entry, and the man with the clipboard there was more than happy to let them in once he could verify they were supposed to be there.