IF ITS walls could talk, they might not tell particularly quiet tales.
Newsham Park psychiatric hospital closed in the mid 1990s and since then peace has reigned, the playground of mice and a few ghost-hunter tours.
Now those walls, long undisturbed by the disturbed, will resound once more - to a different sort of raving this Easter Bank Holiday.
Superclub Cream has teamed up with veteran Liverpool DJs Freeze for a brand new project - The Asylum - which, it says, will bring together an array of world-class electronic artists across the techno, house and electronic music spectrum.
What will the neighbours in sleepy Lister Drive think? Hopefully not too much: the all-day festival-style action moves from Tuebrook to town, come Match Of The Day time, to minimise the eardrum damage.
"This new collaboration sees Freeze and Cream’s strengths combined to deliver a series of events creating a brand new musical direction," say organisers.
The inaugural event takes place on Saturday April 4 at the abandoned Victorian site which, like they say, "radiates with gothic atmosphere".
Headlining is Ibiza DJ and party supremo Marco Carola who leads the charge for a weekend spanning 16 hours across two shows, all with one ticket.
For part one of the opening show, which kicks off at 1pm, The Asylum becomes the backdrop to a mini festival centred on the site’s open air main courtyard, then it continues at Nation at 10.30pm.
Founded as an orphanage in 1874, the building, on the eponymous Orphan Drive, was converted for use as a hospital specialising in psychiatric illness, and many of the wards remain untouched since its closure. It contains a labyrinth of dark corridors and dormitories.
Unusual locations are a trademark of Freeze events. "The philosophy underpinning The Asylum is refreshingly simple," they say. "To build upon the city’s already immense foundations as one of the world’s true bastions of dance music culture, and then take it to the next level in the UK."
*Freeze and Cream Present The Asylum @ Newsham Park, Saturday April 4. Marco Carola + More acts to be announced. The Old Newsham Park Hospital, Orphan Drive, Liverpool, L6 7UN. Times: 13:00hrs – 22:30hrs (last entry 17:00hrs)
PART 2, The Asylum @ Nation, Saturday April 4. Line up TBC. Nation, Wolstenholme Square, 1-3 Parr Street, Liverpool, L1 4JJ Times: TBC. Tickets go on general sale 10am Friday February 6, 2015 here.
