THEY say a picture paints a thousand words and this image is a particularly sad one.

Dug out from the Lancashire Telegraph archives, it shows the burnt out shell of the former day room at Park Lee Hospital, Blackburn.

Debris can be seen strewn all over the place after vandals started the fire.

The sobering image dates back to September 26, 1991.

David Kenny chief executive of the health authority (left) and Graham Parr, district estate manager, are pictured surveying the damage.

Park Lee was opened as a centre for infectious diseases in 1894 and over the following 50 year was gradually expanded until, after the war, in 1948, it had 124 beds.

It was also used as a fever and isolation hospital and had its own resident medical officer.