Asylum was commissioned by the Middlesex Court of Magistrates in 1887, as the fourth Middlesex County Asylum. The architect was George Thomas Hine (1841-1916), a specialist in designing asylums for the insane. In 1889 the uncompleted building passed to the newly created London County Council which opened it in 1893. From 1893 to 1918 it was called Claybury Asylum, from 1918 to 1937 Claybury Mental Hospital, and from 1937 to its closure in 1995 Claybury Hospital.