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1810 - Building started on the original Bedfordshire County Asylum on a site in Ampthill Road, Bedford. 

1812 - Building of the Bedfordshire County Asylum was completed in April at a cost £13,000. It was designed by John Wing and could accommodate 65 inmates.  It was the 2^nd of its kind in the country; Northampton (opened 1811) being the first. Not all counties were as progressive as Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire and by 1828 only ten out of 52 had built their own asylums.

1847 - Bedfordshire County Asylum became the Bedford and Hertfordshire County Asylum - to be eventually demolished in 1860

1856 - An asylum serving Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Huntingdonshire, was founded near Arlesey, Bedfordshire.

1857 - A tramway from the GNR Line to the site of the new asylum was opened to carry the construction material and later goods and passengers; the track was eventually lifted in 1953.

1860 - Now known as the Arlesey Three Counties Asylum, the hospital moved to the Arlesey site, which comprised a 253 acre, of which 230 were cultivated. The architect was George Fowler Jones.

The asylum took the form of a corridor plan, typified by a (often projecting or recessed) central block including administration and accommodation, flanked by long wings either side, each with appropriate working areas and segregated by sex. Built to two or three storeys in height, typically (as the name suggests) a corridor or “passage of communication” would run the length of the building to ease access.

On the 08 March 1860, the first patients were admitted; six men and six women were transferred from the Bedford Asylum. Their ages ranged from 27 to 77 years and their history of hospitalisation from 7 weeks to 34 years.

1861 - There were now 460 patients in the Asylum, 212 men and 248 women and during the year 44 patients had been discharged and 47 had died. On average 125 men and 131 women were regularly employed. Of these 66 men worked in the garden and farm while 33 women worked regularly in the laundry and wash house.

1879 - The chapel was erected.

1884 - A serious outbreak of smallpox occurred in the Asylum, thirteen patients and a nurse died.

1894 - The asylum could accommodate 1,000 inmates.

1895 - The number of inmates in the asylum had reached 1,116.

1920 - Inmates and staff paid for the stained window in the East of the chapel as a memorial to those connected with the asylum who gave their lives in the 1914-1918 war.

1927 - Until now known as the Arlesey Three Counties Asylum, the Ministry of Health gave permission to change the asylum's name to The Arlesey Three Counties Hospital.

1936 - By now the grounds consisted of 410 acres, of which 385 acres were cultivated. The hospital could accommodate 1,100 patients

1948 - The hospital became part of the National Health Service.

1950 - Arlesey Bury was acquired by hospital as a home for nursing staff.

1960 - The Arlesey Three Counties Hospital was renamed Fairfield Hospital. 

1999 - Fairfield Hospital was closed.

Sources:

http://www.institutions.org.uk/asylums/england/BDF/three_counties_asylum.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/threecounties/content/articles/2005/03/29/mind_matters_fairfield_asylum_feature.shtml

http://www.bedfordshire.gov.uk/CommunityAndLiving/ArchivesAndRecordOffice/GuidesToCollections/HospitalRecordsPartTwo.aspx

http://www.countyasylums.com/mentalasylums/fairfield01.htm

http://www.countyasylums.com/mentalasylums/fairfield02.htm

http://www.countyasylums.com/mentalasylums/fairfield03.htm

http://www.countyasylums.com/mentalasylums/fairfield04.htm

http://www.countyasylums.com/mentalasylums/fairfield05.htm

http://www.countyasylums.com/mentalasylums/huntingdonshire.htm

http://www.mdx.ac.uk/WWW/STUDY/4_13_Ta.htm#Bedfordshire

http://www.galaxy.bedfordshire.gov.uk/webingres/bedfordshire/vlib/0.digitised_resources/arlesey_timeline.htm

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/hospitalrecords/details.asp?id=198&page=20

Other reading:
A Proper House: Bedford Lunatic Asylum 1812 - 1860 by Bernard Cashman.

Published by Bedfordshire Health Authority in 1992. Published by South Bedfordshire Community Health Care Trust in 1998.