- .Broadmoor Hospital is home to some of the UK's most notorious killers
- .The secure psychiatric hospital opened its doors for first time in 150 years
- .Footage reveals secure doors with observation holes and extensive CCTV
- .Some patients are so dangerous six staff needed to open their room doors
- .Staff must carry personal attack alarms at all times and wear body cameras
- .Patients fashion weapons and staff suffer four attacks every single week
- .The Yorkshire Ripper and teacup poisoner Graham Young were patients
It is home to 200 of the most violent and disturbed men in the country, and has housed infamous killers such as the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe and poisoner Graham Young.
For more than a century the corridors and wards of Broadmoor have remained closed to the public, its practices such as using six guards to open the door for one inmate a closely guarded secret.
But now Broadmoor has decided to open its doors and reveal the inside of the country's highest security psychiatric hospital.
Broadmoor is the UK's most secure hospital and has remained hidden from the public for the last 150 years
CCTV cameras cover the 15 wards of the Berkshire hospital to ensure staff and inmates are kept safe
Pictures inside the site in Berkshire show long corridors, heavy secure doors and rooms where anything that could be turned into a weapon is removed.
Security is high, with bars throughout the hospital's wards and signs warning staff they must wear personal attack alarms at all times. When they are with patients staff are told to wear body cameras.
The caution is not without reason.
Staff in Broadmoor are attacked on average four times a week, which can involve punching, kicking or in some cases patients fashioning plastic cutlery into knives.
A kitchen in Canterbury ward shows patients' artwork on the walls, produced during monitored sessions
A view into a patients bedroom (left) and heavy secure doors, equipped with observation holes for staff (right)
Around 30 times a year staff are called to disarm patients while all must have riot training and are equipped with helmets and shields.
A control room with a wall covered in screens allows staff to monitor patients and workers in the hospital's 15 wards which are covered with CCTV.
Security is high and is essential to safeguard staff as much as patients - most of whom will be on a combination of medication to treat psychiatric disorders.
The prison is secure, with fencing throughout, and signs warning staff to carry personal attack alarms
Broadmoor entrance gate 60 became an iconic feature of the prison, the inside of which has remained secret
Dr Amlan Basu, Clinical Director of Broadmoor, said: 'Patients that come here, they will have perpetrated often horrendous crimes but they are also victims and it's very easy to see somebody as either the perpetrator or the victim. It's much more difficult to understand that somebody might be both.'
Some inmates are able to earn money in a tuck shop by making arts and crafts, but security has to be high to ensure any potential weapons are removed. All tools are checked in and out during every session.
The inside of the secure hospital has been revealed in an ITV documentary, filmed over a year throughout the hospital.
Security is high at Broadmoor Hospital, with zonal fencing, security signs and CCTV covering all the wards
Staff are reminded to take care of security as there are around four attacks every week on hospital workers
Broadmoor hospital has housed some of Britain's most notorious killers from the Victorian era and today
In Cranfield ward, notorious for its violent patients, some patients are so ill that six staff must be used to open a single cell door.
The pictures and documentary have provided a rare insight into the hospital for the first time in its 150 year history.
Taxpayers pay around £300,000 a year to house each prisoner, at a cost of £60million, the Sunday Mirror reported.
Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper (left), Ronnie Kray (centre picture - front), and tea poisoner Graham Young (right) have all been inmates at Broadmoor Prison in Berkshire, which houses 200 violent psychiatric patients
Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe (left) is pictured meeting Jimmy Savile (centre) and Frank Bruno at Broadmoor
Broadmoor, often incorrectly referred to as a prison, has housed some of the most infamous patients, some of them serial killers.
Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper who murdered 13 women and tried to kill seven others.
Ronnie Kray - one half of the Kray twins who terrorised people with armed robberies, arson attacks and protection rackets - was housed there.
Graham Young, known as the teacup poisoner, was a patient in the 1960s after he murdered his stepmother by poisoning her and tried to kill his father, sister and friend.
The clock tower (left) has become a known feature of the heavily secured Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire
An aerial view of Broadmoor Hospital, in Berkshire, taken in 1991. The hospital has tight security for patients
After he was released he tried to poison 70 more people.
Designed by a military engineer, Broadmoor was the first custom-built asylum to house criminals when it was developed in 1863.
But it has since been known as a psychiatric hospital.
It may eventually be turned into a hotel as a new site is now being built next door.
Broadmoor is one of three maximum security psychiatric hospitals in the UK, the others being Ashworth and Rampton.
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