Löwenströmska Hospital (Historic Campus)

DOCUMENTED: Gustav III, Anckarström and the Löwenström name

On **16 March 1792** King **Gustav III** was shot at the Opera masquerade by **Jacob Johan Anckarström** and died of wounds on 29 March. The family name Anckarström was stained; brother **Gustaf Adolf** adopted **Löwenström**. He later bought/leased land at Torsåker, Hammarby and Holmen near the Stockholm–Uppsala road and Lake Fysingen.

DOCUMENTED: Founding the hospital (1808–1811)

On **12 November 1808** Löwenström asked Stockholm city architect **Carl Christoffer Gjörwell the Younger** for drawings for a hospital on the Holmen property. Care began in an existing building before the purpose-built house north of Hammarby church was ready (**1810**). By gift deed and testament **1811** he endowed **Löwenströmska lasarettet**, to be administered by **Serafimergillet** (Seraphim Order chapter). First long-serving medical head: Christian Ziegert (German), aided by Beata Westerberg — both commemorated in local street names.

**Atonement motive:** Popular and Wikipedia accounts present the endowment as penance for the brother’s regicide. **Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon** states the motive is **not explicit in writing** but is **supported by local oral tradition**, while also citing Löwenström’s own illness and the wartime need for regional care after 1808. Haunted Sweden reports both layers — do not treat atonement as a signed confession in the deed.

The original Gjörwell pavilion no longer stands intact; later fabric incorporated older masonry (Locum / SVT note remains in long-care structures).

DOCUMENTED: County hospital, sanatorium, care institutions

**1876:** Stockholms läns landsting (today Region Stockholm lineage) took over from Serafimerorden. Mid-1800s rebuilds expanded beds (Locum: ~16 then ~54). **1884:** county “idiotanstalt” / early special care and schooling on the campus — historically harsh terminology; later **Klockbacka** school and related homes (care/teaching of people then called sinnesslöa, roughly 1884–1984 in Locum overview). **1910:** **Sanatorium** (TB / Hammarby sanatorium) on the hill. Operations culture of early medicine: instruments used for decades, anaesthesia only from 1858 (Locum heritage text).

DOCUMENTED: New hospital, long-term care, abandonment of historic stock

New **Löwenströmska sjukhuset** rose in the **1960s** (often **1968** / Locum mid-1960s). Historic buildings served **långvård** (long-term care) into the early 1990s — English Wikipedia and urbex sources commonly say historic hospital functions ceased **1993**; Swedish Wikipedia notes emptiness after the new complex, with landsting sale of older stock to a property company in **2009**. Redevelopment (Savana / Arkitema etc.) repeatedly stalled by **Arlanda airport noise**. Some buildings have been reused or converted (e.g. sanatorium → dementia housing in owner materials); others remain empty, vandalised and photogenic for urbex. A **1985** psychiatric building and modern forensic/psychiatric wards belong to the **active** hospital campus — not the abandoned ruin narrative.

DOCUMENTED dark / medical context (no invented epidemics)

Nineteenth-century hospital care meant high mortality risk, limited anaesthesia, contagion including tuberculosis at the 1910 sanatorium, and institutionalisation of psychiatric / intellectual disability populations under period labels. Do not invent specific plague years or named mass-death events without archival proof.

FOLKLORE / URBAN LEGEND — source-labelled

Abandoned hospitals attract ghost stories almost automatically — Haunted Sweden states that explicitly. Local media (**Mitt i**, Halloween features) report rumours of adventurous locals attempting overnight stays and leaving after **mysterious sights and sounds**. Urbex blogs (Schtaie, Utforskat, Oskyltat) emphasise decay, smashed windows and “spooky aura,” usually without controlled investigation data.

Treat shadow figures, corridor footsteps, voices and cold spots circulating online as **modern urban-exploration / newspaper atmosphere folklore**, not verified hauntings. No peer-reviewed paranormal study was located.

Atonement storytelling

The Anckarström–atonement narrative is itself partly **oral tradition** (SBL) amplified into founding myth — historically powerful, but distinguish oral tradition from signed deed language.

Special atmospheric areas (history + decay — not verified hotspots)

1. Historic / “Gamla” lasarett fabric (Gamla Lasarettsvägen area). 2. Former psychiatric / care buildings in the old park (many empty; some active psych elsewhere). 3. Old sanatorium hill (Hammarby / 1910) — partly reused. 4. Long corridors and façades of abandoned stock. 5. Cemetery/chapel — only if documented on a lawful visit; do not invent.

Atmosphere, investigation ideas, best conditions

Crumbling brick, long empty wings, forest and Fysingen edge, Arlanda rumble in the distance. Ideas: exterior documentary; archive research (Regionarkivet Stockholm / SBL); historian interviews; atonement myth vs deed; history vs urbex legend. Best: fog, autumn, rain, blue hour — **from lawful vantage points only**.