St David's Hospital is a vast Victorian building set on a hilltop west of Carmarthen, overlooking the town and enjoying wide views over the Tywi Valley. It was planned as the United Lunatic Asylum for Cardigan, Carmarthen, Glamorgan & Pembroke, as part of a programme untertaken in response to the Lunacy Act of 1845 whereby each county was to make provision for the treatment of mental health patients. Building work started in 1863 and was completed to a reduced plan and opened as the Carmarthenshire, Cardigan and Pembrokeshire County Asylum in 1865 with 212 places. Depicted as the Counties Lunatic Asylum between 1890 and1906 on Ordnance Survey mapping, it was known as the Joint Counties Mental Hospital by 1929 and St David's Hospital in 1948 - a series of names that in part reflect changes in attitudes to mental health since the Victorian period. There were 940 beds in 1971. Most of the hospital was standing empty by 2002 and it is now part of St David's Park.

This is a vast Italianate complex, generally three storey. The walls are of local stone with Bath stone dressings and have an inner brick skin. The roofs are generally hipped. It is set in extensive landscaped grounds (see NPRN 301196), shown in some detail on early editions of the Ordnance Survey County series maps (Carmarthen. XXXIX.6 1890, 1906). Significant additions were made in the later nineteenth century, possibly conforming to the original plan, and there was a major refurbishment in the 1930s.
There is a grandiose central block including offices, the great dining hall and the original chapel. It is flanked by separate mens and womens ward ranges. These are broken by day room pavilions and infirmary blocks projecting into the segregated exercise yards or gardens. Great Italianate water towers with steep pyramid roofs rise over each wing. Behind the mens wards were workshops, the women being provided with a laundry. A remarkably forceful new chapel was built on the north side of the hospital in 1883-9. It was financed by the profits from private patients and patients provided the labour. A detached hospital for infectious diseases stands within the grounds to the west. The earlier gentry house of Job's Well was incorporated as offices and later housing. At the south end of the grounds was a dedicated gas works (NPRN 309683). There are many more recent buildings. The grounds and original buildings now form Parc Dewi Sant (St David's Park) and house a number of local authority units. A small purpose-built hospital building has been constructed and is sited adjacent to the far west site boundary.

RCAHMW 10 February 2009