PATIENTS' casebooks from the former Roundway Hospital, going back nearly 150 years, have been saved by a £10,000 grant.

Archivists at the Wiltshire and Swindon Records Office were deeply concerned at the state of the 40 casebooks, which were literally falling apart, and feared the irreplaceable records, giving an insight into how mental health care has changed in the last century and a half, could be lost forever.

But thanks to a grant of £10,000 from the British Library and Wellcome Fund, the documents can now be restored.

During the 19th century, people with learning difficulties, epileptics, women with illegitimate children and pensioners suffering with dementia were often incarcerated in asylums alongside patients with depression, schizophrenia and a range of other conditions.

Wiltshire's county asylum, which opened in 1852, was later renamed Roundway Hospital and continued to operate as a psychiatric unit until its closure in 1995.

Part of the site has now been transformed into Drews Park village and last planning applications were made for 200 homes to be built on the northern part.