1 Mary Chapman. The Bethel Hospital opened in 1713 as the first provincial mental hospital in the country. Mary Chapman (1647-1724) took a 1,000 year lease for a peppercorn rent for the site. At the time the concept of treating people with mental illness was not accepted practice and they were often ridiculed or locked away. The Bethel continued to offer psychiatric services until the 1980s.
2 The Chapel in the Fields. The Assembly House was built by local architect Thomas Ivory in 1755 on the site of a medieval hospital college which became known as the Chapel in the Fields. In 1609 the Hobart family of Blickling Hall built a town house here. Henry Hobart bought some of the fields surrounding the original Chapel in the Fields – including what is now Chapelfield Gardens.