Ashley House Residential Care Home in Hampshire

Overlooking woodlands on the outskirts of Bordon, Ashley House is a truly inspiring care home with a team totally devoted to providing exceptional dementia care.

When you walk into the care home, it’s like you are taking a step back in time. The environment is designed to feel homely and stimulate reminiscence. For many residents the kitchen would have been the heart of their home. Families would sit around chatting and preparing food together. With this in mind there is the old fashioned cottage kitchen, with a traditional Range oven, a wooden table and vintage-style kitchen equipment. Residents will sit together and supported by the team will prep vegetables for dinner, make cakes and cookies, fold tea towels and simply do things that are meaningful to them.

There is a bar area called The Dog and Trumpet, which has a working gramophone and old records to play. There is a traditional bar, tables and chairs. This is a lovely area for residents to take loved ones when they visit. They can sit together and have lunch, with a tipple of something that takes their fancy.

Downstairs in the care home there is a traditional sweet shop. With everything from dolly mixtures to liquorice allsorts, residents are served over the counter by staff who weigh the sweets from jars using traditional scales.

Margaret Powell, who has been the manager at Bordon’s Ashley House for 15 years, has transformed her office into a rural cottage, so residents feel totally relaxed about dropping in for a chat whenever they fancy. Margaret has dedicated her life to dementia care and her ethos is that you see the person first and the dementia second.

Community focus at Ashley House

Activities are an essential part of life at Ashley House. Children from the local nursery in Bordon pop into the care home each week. Age is no barrier and the benefits of their visits are incredible. One resident, who now has very limited verbal speech, slowly started to read the words of a story with one little girl who kept bringing in her favourite book!

Recently the residents have loved taking part in a project where they paint stones with bright paints and glitter, with everything from flowers to butterflies. Then we take them into Bordon and sometimes further afield into East Hampshire, hiding them for others to find. The idea behind this is to bring smiles to strangers’ faces and brighten their day.

This summer the residents loved planting their own hanging baskets, which have taken pride of place in the garden. This area has a water feature and an old fashioned bus stop. There is a beach area which is lovely for residents to feel the sand between their feet and for visiting children to sit and build sandcastles.

Nourishing body and mind for individuals with dementia 

Mealtimes are a real highlight of the day for the residents. Sometimes having dementia can affect a person’s appetite and make it hard to make choices. With this in mind the chef plates up beautifully presented dishes which are taken to residents at their table. They can visualise and smell the food which really encourages them to eat. There are no interruptions at mealtimes and people eat at their leisure. There are always delicious homemade desserts and freshly baked cakes for afternoon tea.

Upstairs there is a room dedicated to Namaste, which is a wonderful holistic approach to honouring the spirit within, especially for those living in the latter stages of dementia. Residents can relax and enjoy hand and foot massages, while listening to music and relaxing sounds. Staff were overwhelmed when one resident,  who loved her garden and listening to birds, started whistling to the recorded birdsong playing during one of her Namaste sessions.