Herefordshire’s Historic Hospitals

October 19, 2024October 21, 2024 / Harriet Richardson / Leave a comment

Over the last year I have been revising the pages on this website that cover the hospitals in England. I am aware that some of the county pages have little more than a list of sites. Herefordshire was one that had very little information about any of the buildings, but it has now been revised with maps, brief histories and illustrations. This post gives a quick summary of the historic hospitals of Herefordshire and the present status of those buildings.

*Hereford General Hospital from the Annual Report for 1927, from the Wellcome Collection*

Hereford General was the first hospital in the modern sense to be established in the county. It was founded in 1776 and occupied adapted premises in Eign Street. Its success warranted a permanent structure for which a site was given by Lord Oxford (Edward Harley, the third Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, who was MP for Leominster and Droitwich). Building work began in 1781 to designs attributed to William Parker and was completed in 1783.

*Former Herefordshire General Hospital, photographed in 2013 © Stephen Richards from* ***Geograph***

The original building survives at the heart of the site, comprising the central nine bays with advanced pedimented centre. It has been much extended and altered, upwards and outwards, including the entrance porch that was added in 1887 at the same time as the Victoria Wing. By the middle of the twentieth century the site was heavily built over, apart from the open ground immediately in front of the original range overlooking the River Wye. A good sense of way in which the hospital evolved can be gained from a short film made in 2002, as the hospital faced closure, which gives the viewer a guided tour both outside and in (see Hereford Focus on YouTube).

*Victoria Ward, Hereford General Hospital, from the Annual Report for 1928, from the Wellcome Collection*

Hereford General remained the main acute hospital for the county throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. The main alternative was Hereford Union Workhouse, which would have had some accommodation for sick paupers from when it was first built in 1836-7. New infirmary wings were built on the site in 1876 and in the early 1900s, but the main transformation came after the Local Government Act of 1929 which saw many former workhouses transformed into municipal hospitals. For Hereford this resulted in its development into the present Hereford County Hospital, initially with a new hospital range begun just before the Second World War. Shortly after the war broke a series of hutted ward blocks were built on the site as part of the Emergency Medical Scheme to provide for the anticipated large numbers of casualties.

*Hereford County Hospital. Part of the former workhouse buildings remaining on the site, photographed in 2008 *© Jonathan Billinger* from Geograph*

Hereford also had a number of specialist hospitals. The Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital opened in 1889, a handsome Tudor style building designed by the local architect E. H. Lingen Barker. Hereford Town Council also provided for infectious diseases with hospitals at Tupsley while the wider county was served by a sanatorium for tuberculosis near Ameley in a converted house (Nieuport Sanatorium). Provision for maternity cases was increasing in the 1940s, as hospital births began to be more common than home births. The County Hospital had a maternity department that was being extended at the end of the war, and there was a small public maternity ward at the General as well as a few private beds. There were also a few maternity beds at all but Ledbury of the former workhouses, while for private paying patients there was a maternity home in Hereford with four beds.

*Former Victoria Eye Hospital, now converted to housing. Photographed in the* *early 1990s © L. Holmstadt*

There was also the county mental hospital, St Mary’s, at Burghill, first opened in 1871 and a ‘mentally deficiency’ institution at Holme Lacy House that opened in the 1930s. In the rest of the county there were a few workhouses, cottage hospitals and small rural isolation hospitals that were established in the nineteenth century.

*Holme Lacy House, photographed in 2005, © David Dixon*, *from Geograph*

Most of the pre-war hospitals in the Herefordshire are no longer in the NHS estate. Some have been demolished, others adapted to new uses. When the NHS came into being in 1948 the hospitals in Herefordshire came under the Birmingham Regional Hospital Board, which also covered Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Staffordshire and Shropshire. This administrative structure remained in place until the NHS reorganisation of 1974.

*Postcard of the former St Mary’s Hospital, probably from around 1900-10*, *when it was still known as ‘the asylum’.*

Initially the Regional Board was responsible for around 220 hospitals with a total of about 42,000 beds. These were grouped into management units based on function and geographical location. Herefordshire Hospital Management Committee oversaw eighteen hospitals. These were: the General and County Hospitals and the Victoria Eye Hospital in Hereford; St Mary’s Mental Hospital, Tupsley Hospital for infectious diseases and Tupsley Smallpox Hospital; Holme Lacy Hospital for ‘mental defectives’; the cottage hospitals at Ledbury, Leominster, Ross-on-Wye, and Kington; Stretton Sugwas Hospital, near Credenhill; Nieuport Sanatorium; the former workhouses at Ross-on-Wye (Dean Hill Hospital), Bromyard, Leominster (Old Priory Hospital),and Kington (Kingswood Hall). Leominster and Kington were owned by Hereford County Council but the NHS had rights to accommodation under the 1948 National Assistance Act. Nieuport Sanatorium closed in 1951 and the Tupsley smallpox hospital was used as a store. Another smallpox hospital near Bromyard was transferred to the NHS but not used, it was sold in 1952.

*Nieuport House was used as a TB sanatorium by Herefordshire County Council in the 1930s. Photographed in 2007 © Philip Halling, from Geograph*

There are now four NHS hospitals in Herefordshire: Herefordshire County Hospital (the main complex built in 1999-2001, W. S. Atkins Healthcare, with other blocks from 1950s-80s and fragments of the 1830s workhouse), and three community hospitals at Leominster (1899, partly rebuilt 1991), Ross-on-Wye (1995-7 incorporating part of the former workhouse) and Bromyard (1989, Abbey Hanson Rowe Partnership). Mental Health services also operate two in-patient units in Hereford: the Stonebow Unit is on the County Hospital site and is a purpose-built facility erected in 1985 that was recently upgraded, and Oak House in Barton Road, a residential rehabilitation unit in a converted house.

*Stonebow Unit photographed in 2008, © Jonathan Billinger, from Geograph*

Herefordshire in 1945 was still an essentially rural county with no large centres of population. The advent of the NHS was seen as an opportunity to rationalise services, including centralisation, continuing a process that had begun before the war. In order to inform the strategic planning of the hospital service, the Board drew on the Hospital Survey of the West Midlands Area published in 1945 by the Ministry of Health. The Survey did not cover the mental health service which was considered as an essentially separate service with its own legislative basis and at the time there were uncertainties about how it might be integrated within a broader national health service, or even if it should be included at all.

*Former Ledbury Cottage Hospital, converted to apartments in 2009. Photographed in 2016 © John M. from Geograph*

The future of cottage hospitals was particularly threatened by the wider policy for modernisation, centralisation and rationalisation. The Hospital Survey of 1945 noted that Ross-on-Wye cottage hospital had 16 beds, plus ‘a few beds in huts in the garden’, Leominster had 13 beds, Ledbury 12 and Kington just 10 beds. There had also been a cottage hospital at Bromyard, but financial difficulties had led to its closure during the First World War. The others lasted longer. Ross-on-Wye Cottage Hospital was replaced by the new community hospital built on the site of the old workhouse. It was demolished after closure in 1997 and replaced by retirement flats. The original Leominster Cottage Hospital partly survives, absorbed by the present community hospital. Its ward block was demolished to make way for the new hospital building which opened in 1991. Ledbury Cottage Hospital was converted to mixed residential and business use in 2009, having closed in 2002. The Victoria Cottage Hospital at Kington is now Kington Youth Hostel.

*Former Bromyard Hospital, now Enderby House, photographed in 2021* © J. Thomas, from **Geograph**

The Hospital Survey also noted that five former workhouses in Herefordshire had chronic sick wards: Leominster, Ross, Kington, Ledbury and Bromyard. Leominster workhouse, like Kington Cottage Hospital, has become a youth hostel (the workhouse had incorporated some fifteenth-century priory buildings). Ross-on-Wye union workhouse developed into Dean Hill Hospital for geriatrics and mental health unit, and had 157 beds by the mid-1960s. The workhouse buildings have partly been demolished to make way for the present community hospital. Kington and Ledbury Workhouses were not transferred to the NHS. Kington has been demolished and Ledbury partly demolished, but some of the workhouse ranges were converted into housing. Bromyard Workhouse has also been turned into flats, not with great sensitivity.

*The former Medical Superintendent’s House of St Mary’s Hospital, photographed in 2011 © Philip Pankhurst from Geograph*

The largest hospital in the county was St Mary’s, built as the City and County Asylum. It closed in 1994 and in 1998 most of the hospital buildings were ‘stupidly demolished’ (according to the Pevsner Architectural Guide) to make way for a large housing development. The entrance building (St Mary’s House) remains along with sections of the ward wings which were converted to flats.

More information on Herefordshire’s hospitals can be found on the Herefordshire page. There is also more on the workhouses on the workhouses.org site. Archival records relating to the hospitals are mostly at Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre, and I would also recommend the Herefordshire Through Time website, which has a section on hospitals. Historic England Archive has the hospital reports and building files that were put together for the national survey of hospitals carried out in the early 1990s on which I worked (though not on Herefordshire). The files may contain photographs of buildings that were standing then but have since been demolished.

Hertfordshire Hospitals Survey Revisited

October 4, 2024October 5, 2024 / Harriet Richardson / Leave a comment

Hertfordshire was one of the counties covered by the London team of the national hospitals survey, carried out in the early 1990s by the Royal Commission on the Historic Monuments of England. The London team comprised myself and Colin Thom (now Director of the Survey of London). At that time we only investigated hospitals built prior to the inauguration of the NHS in 1948 – so major post-war hospitals, such as those at Welwyn and Stevenage, were excluded.

*Welwyn Garden City’s early post-war general hospital was demolished in 2017.* *Photograph from in February 2017 © Gerry Gerardo, on* **Geograph**

Fieldwork for the survey was carried out in 1991-3. There was not enough time to visit every single site, and some were considered in greater detail than others. The selection had as much to do with ease of access as it did with the historic significance of the buildings. This meant that some ‘important’ sites were either missed out or only briefly dealt with. I am puzzled now as to why some weren’t visited. In Hertfordshire we seem not to have managed to get to Welwyn, Royston or Hitchin, and also didn’t photograph Letchworth Hospital. The rest we visited on various dates between May 1992 and June 1993, while also covering the rest of the South East (Greater London, Essex, Kent, East and West Sussex, and Surrey) as well as Avon, Staffordshire, Shropshire and parts of the West Midlands, added late on to help out the York-based team. We covered a lot of ground, so perhaps I shouldn’t be too surprised that I’m struggling to remember visiting some of them.

For each site a building file was created, and these can be consulted in Historic England’s Archive based in Swindon. (The reference numbers for the files can be found on each of the county pages of the gazetteer after the name of the hospital following the grid reference.) These files vary in content, but generally have a report, photographs and maps.

Follow the link to the Hertfordshire page of this website for more details of individual sites.

What does Pevsner say?

The best known architectural guide to the buildings of Britain is the series begun by Nikolaus Pevsner after the Second World War. The Pevsner guides are generally the first place to look for information about the historic buildings throughout the UK. The original Pevsner guide to Hertfordshire was published in 1953, with an extensive revision published in 1977 (revised by Bridget Cherry). A further revised guide with new material edited by James Bettley was published by Yale University Press in 2019. I have relied heavily on this for updates to the condition of the various hospitals that we visited back in the 1990s. However, hospitals, especially former hospitals, are not easy to find in the guides and often receive only cursory mentions, if any at all. It is not a reflection of their historic significance as public buildings, but rather their relatively lowly architectural status, as they were seldom designed by ‘top’ architects, many are more interesting for their plans than their outward appearance, and where there have been many additions and alterations they can seem muddled and incoherent.

*Original central administration block of West Herts Hospital, Hemel Hempstead, from the 1870s rebuilding of the infirmary. Photographed in 2018 © Dormskirk* *CC BY-SA 3.0*

In its introductory overview, the guide notes that the first purpose-built hospitals appeared around the same time as the first workhouses built after the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. The West Herts Infirmary at Hemel Hempstead was built in 1831-2 followed swiftly by Hertford’s County Hospital in 1832-3 to designs by Thomas Smith. In 1840 Hitchin Infirmary was built designed by Thomas Bellamy. The last two have since been replaced, and only the core of their original buildings has been retained. Bellamy’s Hitchin Infirmary is now Bellamy House – the remainder of the site now occupied by a Waitrose supermarket. Hertford County Hospital has been replaced by a new building constructed alongside in 2003-4 (architects Murphy Phillips) leaving the old building rather marooned. West Herts is a typical multi-phase hospital, with much of its built heritage remaining in use, including the early Cheere House of 1831 and Coe and Robinson’s 1875-7 pavilion-plan infirmary (see photo above).

*Former Watford Union Workhouse from Vicarage Road, photographed in May 1992. The former workhouse building became part of Watford District General Hospital © Harriet Blakeman*

As well as general hospitals, there was a private asylum at Much Hadham established around 1803 (principally of architectural interest to the Guide because it occupied The Palace), and a crop of workhouses. Of the latter, there are partial survivals at Buntingford (1836-7 by W. T. Nash); St Albans (1836-7 by John Griffin); Ware (1839-40 by Brown & Henman) and more substantially at Watford (1836-7 by T. L. Evans) where the workhouse developed into the general hospital.

*Architectural aerial perspective view of proposed asylum, Leavesden*, *from* The Builder

During the Victorian and Edwardian eras Hertfordshire attracted children’s homes and mental hospitals, including the Metropolitan Asylums Board’s ‘Imbeciles’ Asylum’, later Leavesden Hospital, at Abbots Langley designed by John Giles & Biven and built in 1868-70. This asylum was the twin of Caterham Hospital which served the south of the Metropolitan area.

*View looking up the central spine of the hospital with the ends of the ward pavilions to the left, water tower on right.* *All of the buildings in the photograph were demolished as part of the redevelopment of the site. © Harriet Blakeman*

Of Leavesden Hospital only the former administration block, chapel and recreation hall have been retained, converted to the residential Leavesden Court – a gated development – with new housing built to the north and west on the site of the former ward pavilions and parkland to the east.

Setting aside children’s homes, the Guide also notes Holman & Goodrham’s TB sanatorium built for the National Children’s Home built in 1909-10 (survives as the King’s School); Rowland Plumbe’s Napsbury Hospital built in 1901-5 (partially demolished, parts converted to housing); and G. T. Hine’s Hill End Asylum of 1895-9 (largely demolished). The only ‘local hospitals’ during this period mentioned in the Pevsner Guide are the cottage hospital at Watford of 1885 designed by C. P. Ayres (still extant) and the Sisters Hospital at St Albans designed by Morton M. Glover of 1893 (later extensions demolished, original main buildings converted to housing).

One of the former ward blocks of Hill End Hospital, photographed in May 1992. Only the chapel and the southernmost blocks were retained when the site was redeveloped for housing. *© Harriet Blakeman*

In the 1920s Royston Hospital was built to designs by Barry Parker (still an NHS hospital, but much extended). Then in the 1930s the large new mental hospital at Shenley was built, designed by W. T. Curtis (mostly demolished), and ‘a rather utilitarian general hospital’ at Welwyn designed by H. G. Cherry (still an NHS hospital with a newer block built to the south).

Part of the former Shenley Hospital, photographed in May 1992, now demolished, *© Harriet Blakeman*. Only the chapel, medical superintendent’s house and one small accommodation block were retained

The chapel at Shenley Hospital, photographed in May 1992 *© Harriet Blakeman*

There is no mention in the introduction of the post-war hospitals, and the Lister at Stevenage is quickly covered by two sentences that provide the date (1966-72), the architect (E. A. C. Maunder of the North West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board) and summary of its appearance (A central Block of nine storeys, a symmetrical elevation with projecting balconies, surrounded by extensive lower buildings.) Before too long, I hope to produce a separate post on the Lister and the other post-war hospitals in Hertfordshire.

Hertfordshire Hospitals in the 2020s

Hospital services in the 21st Century have become significantly more complex since the early years of the NHS. The NHS currently has thirteen hospitals in the county (not including those that were formerly in Hertfordshire which now lie within Greater London – such as in Barnet). There have been at least 44 hospitals in Hertfordshire in the past, not including a few small local authority hospitals for infectious diseases. The decline in the number of hospitals reflects increasing centralisation of services and changing practices in medical care and treatment. Of the 44 that feature in the Hertfordshire gazetteer page, only five are still NHS hospitals; 15 have been converted to housing or other use, including partial demolition; and 24 have been either entirely or largely demolished. The scale of demolition is larger than even that figure suggests, as it includes some of the largest hospital complexes in the county.

*Former Harperbury Hospital, photographed in May 1992 © Harriet Blakeman*

It has been depressing to discover the extent of destruction of former hospital buildings, a great many of them only having been demolished in the last ten to twenty years. A great deal more should and could have been retained, particularly of the large former mental hospitals such as Shenley, Harperbury and Hill End.

*Former St Pancras Industrial Schools that became part of Abbots Langley Hospital, photographed in the early 1990s, now demolished. © Harriet Blakeman*

Leavesden Hospital, as mentioned above, has largely been demolished to make way for housing. The hospital also had an annexe to the south. This had formerly been the St Pancras Schools, together with detached hospital and babies home. It had an Emergency Medical Scheme spider block built at the start of the Second World War on vacant ground behind the buildings which became Abbots Langley Hospital when transferred to the NHS in 1948. These emergency hutted buildings were intended to be temporary, and it is perhaps more surprising that they lasted into the 1990s than that few of them are left in the 2020s.

*The wartime extension of EMS hutted ward blocks* *at Abbots Langley Hospital, photographed in the early 1990s, now demolished. © Harriet Blakeman*

I have always had a few favourite hospitals – ones that were particularly attractive or interesting. In Hertfordshire, Shenley was one – at least in part because of its lovely grounds. The hospital was laid on the Porters Park estate, along with the mature landscape around the mansion house.

Porters Park mansion was adapted for convalescent patients at Shenley Hospital. *© Harriet Blakeman*

Porters Park has a complicated history having been substantially rebuilt or remodelled on more than one occasion. Its present appearance is largely due to the rebuilding of 1902 for C. F. Raphael by the architect C. F. Harold Cooper. The house and estate were transformed into Shenley Mental Hospital in the 1930s. The map below show the extent of the hospital in the 1950s. It was designed on a colony plan, whereby all the patients’ accommodation and treatment blocks were detached, and arranged in the manner of a village, with central service buildings and chapel.

*Shenley Hospital on the OS map surveyed in the 1950s CC-BY (NLS)*

The map below shows the modern housing development on the site. The existing buildings are shaded orange. The map is overlaid on the 1950s OS map above – and the grey shapes of the hospital blocks can just be seen behind. Only the PW – place of worship – and the small block to its south are from the hospital era.

*Overlay map of Shenley showing the new housing development on the former hospital site. OS map of the 1950s* *and OS Opendata CC-BY (NLS)*

Napsbury was another favourite – here too the landscape setting was particularly good, but the architect for this large asylum, Rowland Plumbe, was allowed to bring his characteristic style to the buildings, which were more decorative than Hine’s more pedestrian Hill End. The picturesque qualities of Napsbury no doubt made its adaptation appealing for the developers of the site, and it is now at the heart of Napsbury Park – a residential development near St Albans largely constructed between 2002 and 2008 (see blog post on Napsbury here).

One of the detached villas at Napsbury Hospital, photographed in the 1990s. Sadly, this villa was demolished *© Harriet Blakeman*

If I had to name a top three of Hertfordshire hospitals, Napsbury would probably be at number one, with Shenley at number two. At number three I would put Bennett’s End – and I was particularly saddened to see that this one has been demolished. It was the perfect small local authority isolation hospital, built in accordance with the Local Government Board’s model plans.

*Aerial perspective of Bennett’s End Hospital published in 1914*, *the hospital looked remarkably similar to this when we visited in the 1990s.*

*Bennett’s End Hospital, administration block © Harriet Blakeman*

There were a few other losses that I am particularly saddened by. Potters Bar Hospital was a charming low-rise late 1930s Deco-ish building that has been replaced by a Tesco supermarket. A new Community Hospital was built on Barnet Road.

*Potters Bar and District Hospital, Mutton Lane, built* c.1938, *closed 1995 © Harriet Blakeman*

I was also shocked to find that I had missed Welwyn Garden City’s Queen Elizabeth II Hospital, demolished in 2017 after the new QEII was built on the adjacent site. The original QEII opened in 1963 and was one of the first new general hospitals to be completed by the NHS. There is a little more information on the Hertfordshire page.

*Model of the* *Welwyn-Hatfield new hospital, published 1958 by the North-West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board*

It has been a sobering exercise, revisiting the survey of Hertfordshire’s hospitals. Far more has gone than I had anticipated. We knew at the time that the NHS was winding down the majority of the large former mental hospitals in England. There had also been an increase in hospital-building during the 1980s with many ‘nucleus’ district general hospitals being built. Together this contributed to a great many hospital closures and redundant buildings. Replacing the older pre-war hospitals had been an early ambition of the new NHS in 1948, but it has taken most of the second half of the twentieth century to come close to that ambition.

Graylingwell

February 9, 2024March 21, 2025 / Harriet Richardson / Leave a comment

Graylingwell Hospital, to the north of Chichester, opened in July 1897. It was originally built as the West Sussex County Asylum to ease overcrowding at the main county asylum at Haywards Health. The hospital was for ‘pauper lunatics’. The plans were drawn up by Sir Arthur W. Blomfield and Sons in 1895 and building work began in May of that year. The building contractors were Messrs James Langley & Co. of Crawley, and the estimated cost of construction £114,669.

*Site of Graylingwell Hospital, from the one-inch OS map revised in 1893, reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Scotland, CC-BY (NLS)*

The site was some way to the north of Chichester, just to the east of Chichester Barracks, formerly occupied by Graylingwell farm. The farmhouse, steading and the ‘grayling well’ were retained for the use of the hospital.

*Former Graylingwell hospital, 25-inch OS map revised 1896, CC-BY (NLS)*

The main complex was designed on an échelon plan of the standard type with the administration block at the centre to the north, the recreation hall, kitchen and stores at the centre and the patients’ pavilions arranged in an arc, off the outer corridor. It was a plan that allowed the patients’ blocks each to have an unobstructed southerly view. Most of the blocks are of two storeys. A chapel was provided to the north of the administration block and a separate hospital for infectious diseases was built to the north-east near the farm buildings and the old Graylingwell house.

*Central south elevation of the former hospital*, *June 1992*

The main hospital buildings are in Queen Anne style, the administration block the most ornate with its grey stone dressings and central pedimented bay. The main entrance was given classical details on the door surround, surmounted by a broken segmental pediment, over that is a Venetian window, and up again to an oeuil de boeuf window in the pediment. A clock tower sits at the apex of the roof. Within the matron had rooms on the first floor above the entrance.

*Graylingwell Hospital, one of the patients’ pavilions* *on the east side of the main complex, photographed June 1992*

The administration block was one of the most attractive blocks on the site, but the patients’ blocks were also pleasing, though not so highly embellished. The accommodation within the patients’ blocks followed a ‘gallery ward’ arrangement, the gallery being the main day space for patients, furnished with books, papers and games. The dormitories had polished pitch pine floors, were furnished with iron bedsteads, with wire mesh spring mattresses (‘Lawson Tait’ mesh), hair mattresses and bolsters, and white quilts. They were overlooked by one or two attendant’s rooms wit glass panelled doors looking into the dormitory. Single rooms off the dormitories provided for restless or noisy patients. Connecting the various sections of the main complex were the corridors and beneath these ‘great subways, through which a man may walk’.

*Patients’ pavilion, south end of the main complex*

To either side of the administration block were workshops, the boiler house, laundry and the mortuary. If they were able, the male patients spent their days either in the workshops, engaged in work such as shoemaking, tailoring, or plumbing, in the gardens or on the farm. Women worked in the kitchen, laundry or work-rooms. The patients’ pavilions were arranged around the edge of the semi-circular complex. They were all constructed of red brick with grey stone quoins and grey slate hipped roofs. There were four pavilions to the west and five to the east. This would suggest that the female side was the larger east side, as female patients generally out-numbered the male patients. When the asylum opened, the local newspaper carried a lengthy report on the buildings, noting how such hospitals had changed for the better over the last sixty years: ‘Every effort is made to abolish the ‘institution’ and to establish a “home” or at worst a “hospital”.’ [The Observer and West Sussex Recorder, 28 July 1897.]

The elegant Medical Superintendent’s house, situated just to the south-west of the complex, was attached to the perimeter link corridor by its own private corridor, like an umbilical cord. The two-storey and attic house was not much smaller than the whole of the administration block and was similarly detailed. The first medical superintendent was Dr Kidd, the head of a staff of around 95. The assistant medical oficer was Dr Steen. Miss Baines was the first matron; Mr Newman the steward and clerk; Mr Newman the head attendant.

At the centre of the complex, behind the administration block, were the communal service areas, such as the kitchen and stores, and the large recreation hall. The latter was next to the main kitchen and also served as the dining hall. There was a gallery at one end and a stage, complete with orchestra pit, at the other. The proscenium arch is ornamented simply with pairs of half-fluted pilasters resting on high plinths which flank the stage. The Observer and West Sussex Recorder noted the plans for dances, theatrical entertainments and concerts to be held in the ‘magnificent theatre’ during the winters, and out-door entertainment once a week in the summer with the Asylum band.

The chapel has quite a different character. Queen Anne gave way to simple Early English gothic, and red brick was replaced by flint. It is a chapel of great charm, with the air of a small parish church. It comprises a four-bay nave with side aisles screened by a pointed-arched arcade. The side aisles are lit by single lancets and the clerestorey above by quatrefoils. The west wall had two pairs of lancets containing stained glass. The chancel comprised a short choir and sanctuary with a mosaic altar-piece. The east window was a triple lancet with fine figurative glass by Heaton, Butler and Bayne of London. When the asylum first opened, all able patients attended chapel every day for morning prayer.

*Stained-glass window in the chapel* *at the west end.*

The photograph of the chapel above shows the twin entrances that were typical of asylum chapels, allowing separate entrances for men and women, and with a room to the side that could be used to remove a patient from the service if they were unwell, disturbed or noisy.

*Side elevation of Graylingwell chapel, photographed in 2005 after the hospital’s closure*

*Chapel interior*, *looking towards the west end.*

*Chapel interior, from the choir, looking towards the entrance at the east end*

The long drive up to the entrance was planted with lime trees to created an avenue, while a separate road provided access for deliveries. The layout of the gardens and grounds were planned by Mr Lloyd of the Surrey County Asylum at Brookwood, and were laid out by the head gardener at Graylingwell, a Mr Peacock, with the help of 22 workmen. Creepers were planted to soften the buildings.

*former infectious diseases hospital at Graylingwell*

The separate infectious diseases hospital to the north-east of the site comprised a single-storey, symmetrical, south-facing ward block, with sanitary annexes to the rear, joined by a single-storey link corridor to a two-storey north block. Again, it is constructed of red brick but the decorative elements are even more sparse, although it does have two rather jolly roof ventilators on the ward block and also a pleasing porch come glazed verandah at the centre.

In the 1930s a nurses’ home was built to the north-east of the chapel. This rather austere, three-storey, 13-bay, hip-roofed block had its appearance greatly improved by the rampant vegetation which covered most of the south front. Stone quoins could just be seen, peeping from under the foliage. At the same time as the nurses’ home was built, two blocks were added to the south-east of the site. The more northerly and larger had become the Richmond Day Hospital by the early 1990s. It was a symmetrical E-plan, two-storey block. The long, main south front had verandas on either side of the central projecting bay, stylistically blending in well with the original patients’ pavilions.

*Graylingwell Hospital from the 25-inch OS map revised in 1932 CC-BY (NLS)*

The block to the south of of the day hospital, and about half its side, was named Kingsmead in the 1990s. It was similar in style to the Richmond Day Hospital. Another contemporary building was named Summersdale, situated on the north-west side of the site. It had a foundation stone, inscribed with the date 29 October 1931.

*Graylingwell Hospital, pavilion on the north-east side of the hospital complex, photographed in 2005 after closure.*

There were some post-war additions to the site, mostly on a small scale, such as the day-rooms added to the patients’ pavilion on the north-east side of the complex (see above). This looks to have been an addition dating to the 1960s, and is more stylish than usual. As yet I have found no information about the work, but I would guess that it was designed in house by the South West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board’s architect’s department. The architect to the Board from about 1956 to 1968 was Richard Mellor, F.R.I.B.A., formerly architect to the Leeds Regional Hospital Board (where he was succeeded by P. B. Nash). In 1968 Mellor was succeed as architect to the South West Metropolitan Regional Board by B. W. East .

*Graylingwell Hospital, patients’ pavilions in 2005.*

By the 1990s although closure was mooted, the grounds were still well maintained and the larger elements of the original planting, namely the trees and shrubs, were still very much in evidence. There was a mixed variety of species with particularly fine trees around the Medical Superintendent’s house and the administration block and chapel, where there was a mixture of evergreens and deciduous trees, including the obligatory Yew tree by the chapel.

Since closure a large housing development has been built on the site, incorporating and adapting some of the old hospital buildings: the main patients’ pavilions of the original complex and the administration block (the Clock House) have been detached from their ancillary buildings and converted into flats, while infill housing has been built in place of the recreation hall, kitchens, workshops, laundry etc. The chapel has been retained and the water tower, medical superintendent’s house, and parts of the isolation hospital. Summersdale House is now the Harold Kidd Unit, for the care of the elderly, those with dementia and other mental health conditions, but the Richmond Day Hospital and the Kingsmead block have been demolished. Further mental health facilities have been provided to the south of the site in the Centurion Mental Health Centre and Jupiter House built in 2001.

William Goldring and Asylums — The Gardens Trust

April 25, 2020 / Harriet Richardson / Leave a comment

This blog post on asylum landscape design was posted recently on the Gardens Trust site. I sympathise on the difficulties of researching the gardens and grounds of hospitals, it can be very difficult to find much information in the surviving documentary sources. Old maps provide evidence of how diverse and complex these designed landscapes were.

At the end of last year I wrote about the work of William Goldring, a prolific landscape and garden designer who died in 1919. Apart from his private commissions and work on public parks he was also involved in the design of landscapes that have been generally overlooked by garden and landscape historians: those of […]

via William Goldring and Asylums — The Gardens Trust

Stone House Hospital, Dartford – now The Residence

October 9, 2016December 4, 2021 / Harriet Richardson / 15 Comments

geograph-048919-by-glyn-baker — Former Stone House Hospital photographed in 2005. The main range of the former hospital is now known as The Residence. © Copyright Glyn Baker and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

A short hop from the Bluewater shopping centre is the former Stone House Hospital, built in the 1860s as the City of London Pauper Lunatic Asylum. The hospital was closed in 2005, a process that had begun some years before, and the buildings remained empty and slowly deteriorating for around seven years before planning permission was given for the redevelopment of the site for housing.

*Stone House Hospital, administration block, photographed in 1992.*

The P. J. Livesey Group carried out the development. Listed building consent was granted in 2012 for the conversion of the main hospital range, the former superintendent’s house (the Hollies), coach-house and stable buildings to provide 93 dwellings and a private gym, change of use for the chapel to offices. Consent was also given for the demolition of the female infirmary, boiler house, laundry rooms, mortuary and associated buildings. A total of 260 residences were planned for the site.

screen-shot-2016-10-08-at-14-44-53 — Stone House Hospital, near Dartford in Kent, built as the City of London Pauper Lunatic Asylum and opened in 1866. Extract from the 2nd-edition OS Map revised in 1895, reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland

The Corporation of London dragged its heels over building a pauper lunatic asylum. They acquired a site at Stone near Dartford in Kent in 1859 from C. White Esq of Barnsfield. Plans were commissioned from the City Clerk of Works, J. B. Bunning. Arguments rumbled on over how big the asylum should be, or if it were needed at all, but after a few revisions of the plans, work finally began in 1862. Progress was painfully slow. With work still far from complete, Horace Jones replaced Bunning as City Architect in 1864. Jones supervised the completion of the building which was officially opened on 16 April 1866.

screen-shot-2016-10-08-at-16-01-13 — *Engraved view of the City of London Asylum, 1866.*

The year before the Visiting Committee reported that the furniture, bedding and general stores had, for the most part, been delivered. An arrangement had been made for the gas supply from Dartford, but the water supply was insufficient. The Committee recommended that patients should not be transferred to the new asylum until the spring, because of the ‘bleak and unsheltered situation of the asylum’. Committee members were also concerned that this bleakness also applied to the interior, where the walls were just ‘rough brickwork whitewashed from the ceiling to the floor’. They feared the contrast would make for an unpleasant change for the poor patients and called for walls to be painted or papered with a cheerful-coloured pattern.

chelsea-ward — *Former Chelsea Ward. Photograph reproduced by kind permission of Peter Aitkenhead.*

The City Asylum was contemporary with various second county asylums: Dorset, Surrey, Staffordshire, and Cheshire, and a number of other city asylums, such as Norwich, Newcastle and Bristol. Its plan demonstrated the refinements that were being introduced to the established corridor plan, having broader corridors, large day rooms and dormitories and fewer single rooms.

screen-shot-2016-10-09-at-16-21-07 — *Stone House Hospital, former canteen. Photograph reproduced by kind permission of Peter Aitkenhead.*

The asylum was extended many times following its completion, with new wings added in the 1870s, an isolation hospital in 1885 (the cottage hospital, now demolished), and extensive additions in the late 1890s.

screen-shot-2016-10-08-at-14-54-16 — *Extract from the 25-inch OS Map revised in 1931, reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland*

A detached chapel (St Luke’s) was built to the north of the main hospital range in 1898-1901 to designs by Andrew Murray. The original chapel, which was at the heart of the main building above the dining-hall, was then converted into a recreation room ‘for concerts, dancing and theatrical amusements’. Whereas the site of the asylum had been described as bleak and unsheltered in the 1860s, it was now commended as being ‘notable for its salubrity’, commanding a view of the Thames and a charming rural panorama.

stonehouse014 — *Stone House Hospital chapel, photographed in 1992.*

*Stone House Hospital chapel, photographed in 1992.*

screen-shot-2016-10-09-at-16-19-45 — *Stone House Hospital Chapel, west window. Photograph reproduced by kind permission of Peter Aitkenhead.*

Sources and References:

The surviving archives of the hospital are in the London Metropolitan Archives – ref: CLA/001: Gravesend Reporter, North Kent and South Essex Advertiser, 31 March 1860 p.4 : London City Press, 16 Dec 1865 p.3: Illustrated Times, 31 March 1866, p.205: Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 19 June 1898, p.1: Building Design, 23 July 2010, 4: Lost Hospitals of London: P. J. Livesey Group website: Parliamentary Papers, Reports of the Commissioners in Lunacy.

Napsbury Park, formerly Middlesex County Asylum

September 20, 2016November 20, 2024 / Harriet Richardson / 29 Comments

screen-shot-2016-09-18-at-11-18-31 — *Napsbury Hospital, photographed in 1992. In the centre is the dining hall, with ward blocks on either side.*

This leafy residential development near St Albans, within sight of the M25, has been established on the site of Napsbury Hospital, incorporating many of the former hospital buildings. Re-named Napsbury Park, the development took place largely between 2002 and 2008.

geograph-1313011-by-nigel-cox — *North side of the former dining hall, photographed in 2009 © Copyright Nigel Cox and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence*

geograph-1313002-by-nigel-cox — The same view in 2007, showing the extent of the rebuilding on this side of the dining hall. The new work was designed to replicate the south front, seen below. Originally this side was linked to the central service buildings – the kitchen was immediately to its north. © Copyright Nigel Cox and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

screen-shot-2016-09-18-at-11-19-07 — *The south side of the dining hall, photographed in 1992.*

The asylum was designed by Rowland Plumbe in 1900 to serve the county of Middlesex. Following the Local Government Act of 1889 and the formation of the London County Council, the former Middlesex County Asylums at Hanwell and Colney Hatch were taken over by the LCC, while the former Surrey County Asylum in Wandsworth (Springfield Hospital) was transferred to Middlesex. The need for a new institution was soon recognized and in 1898 the estate of Napsbury Manor Farm was acquired. In the same year the architect Rowland Plumbe and the Medical Superintendent of Springfield Hospital, Dr Gardiner-Hill, visited asylums in Scotland where a new type of asylum plan was evolving, inspired by the continental colony system.

screen-shot-2016-09-18-at-11-28-29 — Map showing the former asylum as first designed, with the large échelon-plan main complex on the left, the separate acute hospital to its right, farm buildings on the north side, an isolation hospital to the left and in amongst these, the five detached villas and a chapel.

Plumbe’s design that he presented to the County’s Asylums Committee introduced elements from the Scottish system, such as the separate hospital section and detached villas, as well as a typical English-style échelon-plan main complex. In part this was a necessary compromise, as English asylums tended to be considerably larger than their Scottish counterparts and so detached colony-sytle buildings for all patients were uneconomic – Napsbury was designed for 1,152 patients.

napsbury3 — Postcard of Napsbury Hospital, unknown date. Reproduced courtesy of Peter Aitkenhead. The conical-roofed structure in the middle ground was one of the garden shelters that were provided in the gardens attached to each ward block.

The foundation stone was laid on 26 February 1901; the building contractors were Charles Wall Ltd of Chelsea, a firm with considerable experience in hospital construction. An arrangement was made with the Midland Railway Company to provide a station on the Company’s line, to the north west. A branch line was constructed from there directly to the heart of the main asylum complex, with sidings near the boiler house for bringing in coal.

screen-shot-2016-09-17-at-09-45-21 — Extract from the 25-inch OS map, revised in 1922, showing part of the Napsbury Hospital site with the Napsbury Siding shown coming into the site past the farm, by the chapel and arriving at the boiler house, stores and kitchens.

William Goldring was commissioned to design the landscape setting, having earlier been brought in to take over the landscape design for Kesteven Asylum (later Rauceby Hospital) near Sleaford. The OS map below shows the network of curved paths amongst trees and shrubs laid out around the main complex.

screen-shot-2016-09-17-at-09-44-23 — *Extract from the 1922 25-inch OS map showing the main complex. The female side was on the west (left-hand side); it was considerably larger than the male side as female patients outnumbered males.*

Each ward block had its own garden area in front, and picturesque circular shelters were provided, as focal points and providing somewhere to sit.

screen-shot-2016-09-18-at-11-22-45 — *One of the thatched, circular garden shelters, photographed in 1992, in a state of disrepair.*

As well as garden grounds, there was a cricket pitch with pavilion on the south side of the main complex.

screen-shot-2016-09-18-at-11-23-16 — *The Arts & Crafts-style, thatched cricket pavilion, photographed in 1992 (since demolished).*

On 3 June 1905 the new asylum opened. The main complex provided accommodation for 650 patients, its dog-leg échelon plan allowing for a higher proportion of female patients to males. Patient ward blocks, designed as far as possible in the style of large detached villas, were linked by single-storey corridors, and each block was allocated to a different class of patient depending on their diagnosis. In the terminology of the time these were: sick, infirm, epileptic, chronic, chronic refractory and working patients.

screen-shot-2016-09-18-at-11-21-27 — *View along one of the main corridors. The characteristic brown-glazed bricks are probably the original finish – hard wearing and easily cleaned. Photographed in 1992.*

Each ward block comprised day rooms, dormitories and single rooms for the patients in addition to attendants’ rooms. These were floored with pitch pine coated with ‘Ronuk’ polish. Doulton and Company’s faience open fires, supplemented by hot-water radiators, provided the heating, and the sanitary annexes, containing the baths, wash basins and WCs, were separated from the main patient areas by cross ventilated corridors in the usual manner.

screen-shot-2016-09-18-at-11-24-32 — *One of the male ward blocks, photographed in 1992*

The ward blocks each had a fire escape and goods lift and were designed so that any outbreak of fire could not spread to the adjacent blocks. As part of this fire-proof construction, the main stairs were of cement concrete with York stone treads.

geograph-475660-by-nigel-cox — Scrubbed up, one of the former ward blocks now converted into housing. The block on the right is a modern replica. Photographed in 2007 © Copyright Nigel Cox and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

*Ward interior, probably dating from the First World War. Reproduced courtesy of Peter Aitkenhead.*

A large common dining hall was situated at the centre, dividing the male and female sides of the complex. To the north of the dining hall was the kitchen, kitchen offices and stores. On the male side were the boiler house, workshops and water tower. The laundry was on the female side.

screen-shot-2016-09-18-at-11-29-05 — *The water tower and the service area of the main complex comprising boiler house, kitchens, stores and workshops. Photographed in 1992.*

geograph-475329-by-nigel-cox — *The water tower photographed in 2007, with housing development around it replacing the old hospital service area. © Copyright Nigel Cox and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence*

On the north, counterbalancing the dining hall, was the administration block. This imposing gabled building of two storeys had a squat square tower over the main hall and a stubby porte-cochère before the main entrance. It contained the committee rooms, offices and quarters for the assistant medical officers.

screen-shot-2016-09-18-at-11-27-28 — *Administration block on the north side of the main complex, photographed in 1992*

The separate hospital for admissions and cases requiring observation and medical treatment was situated to the east of the main asylum complex and was completely detached from it and independent, except for a subway carrying steam pipes. It had its own water supply, laundry, kitchen, dining and recreation hall.

screen-shot-2016-09-18-at-11-23-47 — *Main entrance of the former hospital section, photographed in 1992*

The administration block was on the north side, in a similar style with a multi-gabled façade and mullion and transomed windows. It was of two storeys and attic with a central entrance leading to the main entrance hall and fernery. In addition to office accommodation, it also contained rooms for photography, a museum and research laboratory. The hospital provided 250 beds in single-storey ward blocks. Convalescent and nursing cases occupied the blocks on the south side, the sick and infirm those to the east and west.

screen-shot-2016-09-18-at-11-27-56 — One of the detached villas, photographed in 1992. View from the east of one of the pair of villas built for working female patients to the north west of the main asylum complex. These were altered, extended and linked together by a single storey range to the south. They have not been retained in the redevelopment of the site.

Dotted about the park were five detached villas, these were originally designed to accommodate working patients, convalescent patients soon to be discharged and private patients (‘paying guests and artisans’). Each could house fifty or fifty-two patients, sleeping in small dormitories, with sitting rooms and dining rooms.

*Detached villa, photographed 1992. This was the farm villa, designed for male, working patients. It has not been retained as part of the redevelopment of the site.*

There was also a small isolation hospital, on the edge of the site near the railway line, with its own separate services. It was extended in the 1920s and 30s. Other ancillary buildings included a post-mortem department, medical officer’s house, staff housing, chapel and farm buildings. The company of Gillett & Johnston (bellfounders) cast four bells for the chapel, probably for a clock with three Quarter bells and an Hour. See the note at the end of this post for the specifications for the bells, which were cast in 1903 and 1904.

screen-shot-2016-09-18-at-11-22-12 — *Former isolation hospital, photographed in 1992*

Only a few years after the hospital opened Rowland Plumbe was asked to prepare plans for additions and alterations – accommodation was needed for another 600 patients and improvements had to be made to the drainage.

*Napsbury War Hospital, First World War. Reproduced by courtesy of Peter Aitkenhead*

During the First World War the hospital was taken over by the Army. By 1915 the Army had realised that it needed considerably more accommodation for those suffering from ‘war strain’, and entered into negotiations with Middlesex County for the use of parts of its asylums at Wandsworth and Napsbury. The acute hospital at Napsbury and two of the villas (for convalescents) were transferred to the Army in 1916. Napsbury War Hospital provided 350 beds and was allocated to the severest cases. In May of the same year, the remainder of Napsbury Hospital was also handed over to the Army for general medical and surgical cases, with 1,600 beds for soldiers invalided home from the front.

*Napsbury War Hospital, First World War, photograph showing patients and staff. Reproduced courtesy of Peter Aitkenhead.*

The largest addition to the site after the First World War was a new nurses’ home built to the south of the main complex and west of the cricket ground.

screen-shot-2016-09-18-at-11-19-40 — *Former Nurses’ Home built in the 1920, photographed in 1992*

By the early 1920s one of the detached villas, that nearest the hospital section, had been taken over as a nurses’ home.

geograph-134541-by-martin-addison — Built as a detached villa for female paying patients to the south-east of the hospital section. An identical villa for male private patients was built to the north-west of the hospital section, but later turned into a nurses’ home. Both have been converted into housing. Photographed in 2006 © Copyright Martin Addison and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

When we visited the site in 1992 as part of the RCHME Hospitals Survey it was still a hospital for those suffering from mental illnesses. The staff were very welcoming, allowing us to go over the site and photograph the outsides of the buildings, although one person was disturbed by the sight of the camera (the phrase ‘tupenny-ha’penny photographer’ was thrown in our direction).

The hospital closed in 1998, although a small psychiatric unit remained on site until around 2002. The grounds were designated by English Heritage as a Grade II historic park in 2001, recognizing the importance of this rare survival of a public landscape designed by William Goldring. The hospital buildings were listed, also Grade II, in 1998. Crest Nicholson acquired the site in about 2002. Around 545 residences have been created in a mix of apartments in the converted buildings alongside new detached and terraced houses the masterplan and detailed designs were drawn up by Design Group 3 architects. Much has been demolished – all the service buildings at the core of the main asylum complex, apart from the water tower, the ward blocks of the hospital section and some of the villas, but the footprint has been retained – paths or roads replacing the distinctive corridor that linked together the ward blocks. The new buildings have been designed to match the old in the use of warm orange-red brick, and in style they take their cue from Rowland Plumbe’s buildings. Generally it is one of the better examples of the re-use of a former asylum complex.

References

The Builder, 31 August 1901, p.198; 17 June 1905, pp.651-2; 1 Feb. 1908, p.127: Building News, 2 June 1905, p.780: Hertford Library, H362.11, brochure for the opening of Middlesex County Asylum: PP XXVIII.381 c.899, 1920, History of the Asylum War Hospitals in England and Wales

Note on the Gillett & Johnston bells

Gillett & Johnston (bellfounders) records, they cast four bells for Napsbury Asylum Chapel, then in Middlesex. They appear to be a clock with three Quarter bells and an Hour. The motor might also be by G&J. The details of these bells are below:

Serial No1914; 24″diameter; Weight 2cwt 3qrs 8lbs; Cast 12/1903.
Serial No1877; 28″diameter; Weight 4cwt 1qr 14lbs; Cast 02/1903.
Serial No1931; 29 1/2″diameter; Weight 4cwt 3qrs 21lbs; Cast 03/1904.
Serial No1932; 34″diameter; Weight 7cwt 1qr 6lbs; Cast 03/1904.

Information from the Gillett & Johnston records kindly supplied by Alan Buswell.

Storthes Hall, former West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum

August 14, 2016January 9, 2022 / Harriet Richardson / 6 Comments

*Postcard of Storthes Hall Asylum, Kirkburton, West Yorkshire when newly built. Reproduced courtesy of Peter Aitkenhead.*

Storthes Hall was the fourth, and last, pauper lunatic asylum for the West Riding of Yorkshire. The first section, designed as an acute hospital, opened in June 1904. This was similar to the earlier acute block added to the Wakefield asylum in 1899. Only the gate lodge and the administration block of this section now survive, the remainder of the buildings providing the footprint for Huddersfield University’s student village that now occupies the site. The larger section to the south-west (pictured above), has also been demolished with just the administration block remaining in a ruinous state.

Screen Shot 2016-08-14 at 08.07.37 — *Detail from the 6-inch OS map, revised in 1904-5. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland.*

The West Riding Asylums Committee decided to build their fourth pauper lunatic institution around 1897 and purchased Storthes Hall, together with a large part of the estate, from Thomas Norton in 1898. By January 1899 the county surveyor, Joseph Vickers Edwards, had visited the most recent asylums built in England and Scotland and presented a report to the Asylums Committee. The Commissioners in Lunacy advised that they would not approve an asylum designed on the village or colony principle, a type that was emerging as an ideal form for mental hospitals around this time. They agreed to sanction plans for the acute hospital provided that it was entirely separate from the general asylum complex. Originally this section was to have 200 beds (100 each of male and female patients), the general asylum was to accommodate 1,200 patients and be capable of enlargement. [1]

StorthesHall3 — *Interior of one of the broad corridors of the asylum which served as day-room space. Reproduced courtesy of Peter Aitkenhead.*

The acute hospital was symmetrically arranged with two blocks or wards on either side of the central administrative section, each for 50 patients, one for sick and infirm, the other for recent or acute cases. Flanking the hospital were two detached blocks, or ‘cottage homes’, designed to house 36 chronic, healthy patients each, who would form part of the labour force for the asylum. [2] To the south-west of the acute hospital was the central boiler house and laundry, with laundry residence, these sections were constructed in 1902-3 by John Radcliffe & Sons, Huddersfield (acute hospital) and William Nicholson & Sons, Leeds (laundry and boiler house). [3] The rest of the complex was commenced in 1904 once the acute hospital was completed, with Radcliffe & Sons as the building contractors.

Screen Shot 2016-08-14 at 08.15.32 — Extract from the 1:25,000 OS map published in 1955. The acute hospital is to the north, the boiler house and laundry section centrally place and the large echelon-plan complex was for general cases. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland

Joseph Vickers Edwards, who designed the asylum, was the County Architect. He also designed High Royds Hospital, the third West Riding asylum, in 1885 (built in 1887-9), and the hospital blocks at Scalebor Park, which opened in 1902 as an asylum for paying patients. Edwards was born in Liverpool around 1852, and trained as a civil engineer. He had been the borough engineer for Burnley before he was appointed as the deputy surveyor and architect to the West Riding in the late 1870s under Bernard Hartley. As County Architect he initially had responsibility for roads and bridges as well as all the other local authority buildings. He designed a number of public and council buildings: additions to County Hall, the police headquarters at Wakefield, the teacher-training college at Bingley, and inebriates’ reformatory at Cattal. He was remembered as a genial man, popular with his staff and ‘moderately fond’ of sports – mostly cricket. [4]

StorthesHall1 — *Postcard of Storthes Hall Asylum, showing the admin block of the general asylum. Reproduced courtesy of Peter Aitkenhead.*

Later additions to the site included: 1909 post-mortem room; 1915 isolation hospital; 1934 tenders for Assistant Medical Officers residence, W. H. Burton, architect; 1935 Clerk of Works house, extension to the nurses’ home also by Burton; 1939 Medical Superintendent’s house.

Storthes Hall itself, a private house to the north east of the hospital site, was used as an institution for the mentally handicapped, and was known as the Mansion Hospital. After it closed in 1991 it reverted to a private residence. In 2005 outline planning permission was granted for building a retirement community on the site of the former general asylum complex. An extension to the time limit was granted in 2012, considerable delays had ensued with arguments over the inclusion of affordable housing in the scheme. Revised plans were approved in 2016 which include converting the derelict admin block into a residential care home.

StorthesHall2 — *Detail from an early postcard of Storthes Hall Asylum, probably dating from around the time of the completion of the buildings in the early twentieth century. Reproduced courtesy of Peter Aitkenhead.*

For more images of the asylum and details of its history see highroydshospital.com, the website for Storthes Hall Park student accommodation has photographs, mostly interiors, of the Huddersfield University’s student village. Historic England Archives holds a file on the hospital, ref: BF102003. Recent bird’s-eye aerial photography of the site can be seen on Bing.com/maps.

Select references:

Huddersfield Chronicle, 12 Jan 1899, p.4
Huddersfield Chronicle, 5 July 1900, p.3: Building News, 21 July 1900, p.61
Leeds Mercury, 1o Oct 1901, p.2
Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 6 May 1913, p.7

Bristol Lunatic Asylum, now the Glenside Campus of UWE

May 6, 2016May 2, 2023 / Harriet Richardson / 3 Comments

*Glenside Hospital as it was in 1992 , © H. Richardson*

For nearly twenty years now the faculty of Health and Applied Sciences of the University of the West of England has occupied the old Bristol Lunatic Asylum. The asylum, latterly Glenside Hospital, was wound down from 1993 when it merged with neighbouring Manor Park Hospital. New facilities for mental health patients were constructed on that side, and it was renamed Blackberry Hill Hospital. The University faculty was formed in 1996 when the existing faculty of Health and Community Studies merged with Avon and Gloucestershire College of Health and Swindon College of Health Studies.

*The administration block at the centre of the former hospital, photographed in 1992 © H. Richardson*

The former hospital is one of the most attractive architecturally of the many county asylums built for paupers in the mid-nineteenth century. Its history has the added interest of its association with one of Britain’s greatest modern artists, Stanley Spencer, who worked as a medical orderly here during the First World War when the hospital was requisitioned by the War Office. During that time it was renamed Beaufort War Hospital. There is a museum on the site housed in the chapel.

Bristol Pauper Lunatic Asylum first opened in 1861. Patients had previously been sent to St Peter’s Hospital, the city workhouse that had been set up in a converted Jacobean house near St Peter’s church (see map below). By the 1850s this had become inadequate and there had been ‘certain distressing casualties’; one case at least had been the subject of an inconclusive investigation. There was much local hostility to the idea of building a county asylum, principally on the grounds of the increased burden on the rates. It was hoped that a swap might be organised with the workhouse at Stapleton, moving the pauper lunatics there and the ordinary paupers into St Peter’s, or of just converting some of the workhouse buildings into lunatic wards. But these plans were quashed by the Poor Law Commissioners who flatly refused to sanction the conversion of any part of the workhouse.

Screen Shot 2016-05-02 at 14.35.44 — *Extract from Millerd’s Map of Bristol, 1671 (public domain image via commons.wikimedia*)

In the interim, legislation governing the provisions for pauper lunatics was tightened up, with an amendment to the Lunacy Act making it harder for counties and boroughs to avoid providing suitable accommodation. With no option but to construct a new asylum, a competition was held for the design. There were 27 entries, judged by the building committee with advice from Anthony Salvin. In March 1857 the best three were awarded prizes, the first premium went to Thomas Royce Lysaght of Bristol (£100), second were Medland & Maberly of London and Gloucester (£50), and third J. H. Hirst of Bristol (£25). Lysaght’s plans were preferred as they seemed to meet the requirements while remaining within the restricted budget, and the architect had experience of asylum construction, having been responsible for that at Cork. Mr Herapath¹ congratulated the committee for having chosen well. They had ‘taken care not to adopt the most beautiful plan, but had chosen one which was neat but not gaudy’. It was ‘quite sufficiently ornamental’. [Bristol Mercury, 21 March 1857, p.6]

*Ground-plan of the asylum as first built, published in the 16th Annual Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy, 1862*

Henry Crisp has sometimes been credited with the design of the original buildings (including by Historic England in the list description), but he only arrived on the scene later and it was Lysaght who got the job. Construction began in 1858 and after it was finished it was dubbed the Lunatic Pauper Palace on account of its architectural grandeur and the high cost of building (£27,500 for the building including lodge, stables, roads, planting, draining, boundary walls, supply of gas ‘etc’). The clerk of works was Mr Long, and the building contractors were J. & J. Foster, with Mr Yalland, mason; Mr Melsom, St James’s Barton, plasterer and painter; Mr Abbot, plumber; Mr Williams, glazier and Mr Harris, gas-fitter. [Bristol Mercury and Western Counties Advertiser, 20 Oct 1860, p.2]

Screen Shot 2016-05-02 at 11.16.02 — *Extract from the 6-inch OS map surveyed in 1880-1. By this date additional wings had been built to the west and east. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland*

The cost was not far removed from the half-a-dozen or so other asylums that were built around the same time; those in Cumberland and Northumberland, for the same number of patients, were estimated to cost £20,00 and £42,427 respectively. It was also considerably less than the figure being bandied about in the press some years earlier when it was reported that Lord Palmerston had ordered the authorities of Bristol to build a new lunatic asylum at an estimated cost of £45,000 (although the following year the figure reported was a more reasonable £20,000). [The Western Times, 11 Feb 1854]

*The Lodge, photographed in 1992 © H. Richardson*

It was designed in the fashionable Italianate style, the front ‘well broken up’ and forming ‘without superfluous ornament’ … ‘an exceedingly picturesque structure’, and built from Pennant stone that was mostly quarried on site, the quarries were then used for water storage beneath the kitchens. The asylum could accommodate 200 patients, with one-third in single rooms (a few of which were padded cells), the remainder in associated dormitories containing between six and eleven beds. In addition there were infirmary wards, providing a total of 22 beds. A measure of fire-proof construction was achieved through rolled iron floor joists filled in between with concrete, apart from in the offices and stores. Fire plugs for attaching hose pipes were provided at four points and the towers contained large reservoirs of water.

The Commissioners in Lunacy published a report on the asylum in 1861 following an inspection of the buildings in October the previous year by two of the Commissioners, Robert Lutwidge (Lewis Carroll’s uncle) and Dr James Wilkes. The main building was located on the northern boundary of the site, the principal elevation facing south-east. It was approached from the lodge at Fishponds along an ornamentally planted avenue. All the ground to the south of the building, amounting to around 17 acres, was used as a vegetable garden. Patients largely occupied the apartments on the south side of the building, staff and services the north side. The latter included the porter’s room, reception room, visiting room, committee room, apartments and office for the clerk or steward, rooms for the engineer and stores. In the central block, which acted as a buffer between the male and female sides of the building, were staff apartments: on the ground floor those of the Assitant Medical Officer and the Matron, the Medical Superintendent’s residence occupied the first and second floors, and servants had bedrooms on the third floor.

11411352914_d4c213b939_z — *The dining-hall, which continues to serve its original function at the Glenside Campus UWE, photographed in December 2013 by Nick , licensed under creative commons CC BY 2.0*

The kitchens were on the ground floor and the dining-hall above – a lift being installed to take food from one to the other. There was a chapel within the main complex, capable of holding 150 patients, located adjacent to the dining hall which could seat the same number. The galleries for the patients were 12 feet wide, were heated by open fire-places, and were positioned to take advantage of the views over the surrounding landscape (‘commanding good views of the picturesque country round’). Window seats encouraged patients to sit and contemplate the scenery. There were also day rooms, larger rooms with two fire-places. Every ward had direct access to the airing grounds, which were ornamentally laid out, with walls low enough to allow patients to see over them.

15854418602_67f945aea1_z — *The laundry photographed during the First World war, posted on flickr by Nick , licensed under creative commons CC BY 2.0*

Heating and ventilating for the ‘asylum portion’ was by Haden & Son of Trowbridge. The towers at the extreme ends of the building extracted foul air from the wards, which was then conveyed through the roofs in a pupose-built channel. The same firm supplied the kitchen equipment. On the female side was a ‘laundry ward and establishment’ consisting of a 10-bed ward for the more convalescent patients, a receiving-room for soiled linen, a wash-house, laundry, room for sorting clean linen, and nearby were drying machines and boilers. Corresponding with this on the male side were workshops, with a ‘workshop ward’, carpenter’s, shoemaker’s and tailor’s shops. The dead-house and postmortem room were also at this end, ‘being nearer the road for funerals’.

*The asylum church added to the site in 1882 replacing the room within the asylum that have previously served the purpose*. *© H. Richardson*

There were various phases of extensions to the asylum. It was first enlarged in 1875-7 when the wings to the west and east were added, then in 1882 a detached chapel was built, the original one being absorbed into the hall. The chapel was designed by a local architect, E. Henry Edwards in a ‘Norman Gothic’ style to seat 350 souls. The foundation stone was laid in September 1880, the building contractors were Forse and Ashley of Bristol. [Bristol Mercury & Daily Post, 25 Sept 1880, p.8]

*Extract from the second edition OS map revised in 1912 showing the asylum and neighbouring workhouse. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland.*

Henry Crips and Oatley were the architects for the additions carried out in two phases between 1887-91. The first phase comprised four new wings, mortuary and workshops, for which the building contractor was A. Krauss of Russell Town, Bristol. The second phase comprised an ‘entirely new’ administration and residential block providing for the greatly enlarged asylum – it had expanded to from its original accommodation for 250 patients to an anticipated 1,000 patients. For this phase the general building contractor was A. J. Beaver of Bedminster, and R. Withycombe of Bristol was the clerk of works. Fire-proof floors were carried out by Dennett & Ingle of Whitehall.

*Former Glenside Hospital, general view looking north-east, photographed in 1992 © H. Richardson*

It was at this period that the impressive clock tower was built, rising to 120 ft with clock faces on each side. These were supplied by Potts & Sons of Leeds, and were 8 ft in diameter with illuminated dials. Bells truck the quarters and the hours. A strictly time-tabled routine had obviously become a key feature of the running of the asylum. [Building News, 10 April 1891, p.500]

*This detail from the perspective view of the asylum published in* Building News *shows the additions at the south end of the original wing*s

Further additions were carried out in 1888-90, and then again in 1897-1902. This time the Visiting Committee dispensed with the services of an architect and appointed H. R. Withycombe, the clerk of works who had served under Crisp and Oatley, to supply plans and supervise construction. (There seems to be some doubt as to whether Withycombe actually designed the buildings or if another architect was involved.)[Western Daily Press, 16 April 1902, p.7]

Straightened_Glenside-2 — *Glenside Campus aerial photograph 2014 by Rodw, reproduced under creative commons CC BY-SA 3.0*

During the First World War the asylum was requisitioned as a military hospital for the war wounded and renamed Beaufort War Hospital; the existing patients were relocated to other asylums, but some returned in 1919 when the military handed the hospital back to the City. Cary Grant’s mother, Elsie Leach, is said to have been one of those readmitted after the war. Although officially now called Bristol Mental Hospital, it continued to be known as Bristol Asylum locally, well into the 1920s. In 1959 it changed its name again to Glenside Hospital. The conversion to the Glenside campus of the University of the West of England seems to have been a particularly happy one, preserving the old buildings and their setting.

¹ Mr Herapath, probably William Herapath, Professor of Chemistry (1796-1868), a magistrate and prominent Town Councillor.

Brislington House, now Long Fox Manor, Georgian Bristol’s exclusive private madhouse

March 20, 2016February 3, 2022 / Harriet Richardson / 4 Comments

V0012192 The asylum and front grounds, Bath. Steel engraving after S. — *Brislington House, engraving after S. C. Jones,* c.1865. *Wellcome Library, London. Reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0*

Brislington House, together with its founder Dr Edward Long Fox, was one of the most influential asylums in the first half of the nineteenth century. It has much in common with the York Retreat. Fox was a Quaker, like the Tukes, and he held a similar belief in the restorative power of nature and the familiar comforts of a domestic environment. Brislington House originally comprised a row of separate houses, rather than the large rambling pile that survives today. It was designed to make the patients feel at home, rather than in an institution or a prison. This was, in a large part, possible by catering primarily for paying patients, and the well-to-do at that. In this manner it operated in a similar way to Ticehurst, Sussex and Laverstock House, Wiltshire, both lucrative private asylums.

a hospital606 — *Brislington House, now Long Fox Manor, private flats, photographed in October 1992*

Edward Long Fox is an intriguing individual, he had an extensive private practice as a physician in Bristol, rose to be a senior physician at Bristol Royal Infirmary, and was an astute businessman, amassing a considerable fortune. Before embarking on the Brislington House venture he had operated a private asylum at Cleve Hill. But he was also involved in radical politics, and had an active interest in some less mainstream aspects of medicine. He seems to have been widely admired, but not universally so, accused at times of quackery and worse. [1]

Fox bought the Brislington estate in 1799, and spent several years over the planning and construction of the asylum and the laying out of the grounds around it. Building work seems to have begun in 1804, and the first patients were admitted in 1806. Fox described the arrangements:

The patients of each sex are arranged under three classes. Each class inhabits a distinct house, detached from the other by an interval of eighteen feet, with a separate court for the exercise of the patients, wherever they please; the ground of which is elevated, so that they can view the surrounding country, while a border sloping towards the wall secures them from escape. [2]

Although Brislington House is well documented, and plans survive for the buildings, no architect seems to be mentioned anywhere, or even a builder.

Plan_of_Brislington_House-2 — *Ground plan of Brislington House Asylum, probably published around 1809. (public domain image*)

In addition to this idyllic accommodation were less glamorous cells for the refractory patients. These can be seen on the plan above, at the foot of the walled gardens to the south of each house. It was in one of these that John Perceval (son of the former prime minister, Spencer Percival, assassinated in 1812) recorded spending a miserable period. Perceval noted that the cells were lit from above, and heated by flues in the wall rather than with open fires.

L0012305 Engraving: Brislington house — *Garden front, from Francis Charles Fox,* History and present state of Brislington house, *1836 Wellcome Library, London. Reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0*

At either end of the row of houses were two small detached infirmaries. The use of separate houses to aid the classification of the patients may have been inspired by contemporary French asylums, notably La Salpêtrière in Paris where the different categories of patients were assigned to separate loges or detached blocks. However, the loges at La Salpêtrière, designed by François Viel c.1786, were all of one storey and the same design. At Brislington the houses were of two or three storeys and not identical.

The buildings were also interesting for their early use of fire-proof construction; a matter which was close to Fox’s heart. When the first county asylum was built at Nottingham in 1810, Fox was in correspondence with the Committee of Governors and warmly recommended the use of iron in construction which he considered ‘did not only serve to alleviate the dangers from fire, but also from lice and vermin’. [3]

Screen Shot 2016-03-18 at 14.45.39 — *Extract from the 6-inch OS map, revised in 1901-2. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland*

Fox’s success was immediate and sustained. A mark of this is the erection on the estate of Lanesborough Cottage in 1816 for Lord Lanesborough, and of Swiss Cottage in 1819 for Lord Carysfoot. The Beeches was added in the 1820s and Heath House, the large villa to the north-west of the main asylum, was built around 1829 and was occupied by Edward Fox when he retired from the management of the asylum in that year. But the asylum remained a family business, his sons Francis and Charles, both also physicians, taking over its management. After their father’s death in 1835 they issued a brochure or booklet relating the history of the asylum and its present state. In 1850-1 they undertook a major remodelling of the buildings, joining them together as they are now, and building additions, including the chapel. Previously the laundry was converted into a chapel on a Sunday, and services regularly performed there. [4]

a hospital607 — *The chapel, Brislington House, photographed in 1992*

The main building was oriented on a north-east to south-west axis, with the entrance front facing north-west, so the garden front had the sunnier south-east aspect. Both long elevations still have a rather disjointed appearance, presumably reflecting their former separation. The building is rendered with stone dressings in an Italianate palazzo style.

a hospital603 — *Main building north-west elevation, photographed October 1992*

The garden front is more informal, the central seven bays are flanked by full-height bows, rather resembling angle turrets, with three windows at first and second floor levels.

a hospital604 — *South-east elevation of the main range, 1992*

Brislington House south front — *South-east elevation, photographed in October 1992*

Across the north end the chapel and recreation hall were built. The chapel has a Greek cross plan and follows the classical style of the rest of the asylum. Inside the box pews were still in situ in 1992 and a fine wood-carved reredos with gothic (or possibly gothick) details, some good light fittings and a painted timber compartmental ceiling. There was also a small gallery over the entrance.

a hospital617 — *Brislington House chapel, October 1992*

Brislington_House_chapel_brighter — *The chapel in 2013. Photograph by Rodw, from wikimedia commons, licence CC BY-SA 3.0*

Brislington House chapel window — *Detail of chapel window, the rendering was quite decayed in places in 1992, it has since been repaired and painted.*

Brislington House chaple window — *Memorial window in the chapel, from St Luke’s Church, Brislington.*

Brislington house chapel ceiling — *Detail of the chapel ceiling. Slightly squiffy. October 1992.*

The recreation hall, which was added in 1866, has a deceptively austere exterior – doubly so in the early 1990s when it was faced in rather grimy render. The interior was contrastingly lavish with a small platform at the west end, the walls panelled with bolection moulding and ornamented by anthemions and lyres, and broad pilasters with paterae decorating the frieze. The coved ceiling has bands of greek key pattern and, in the corners of the central flat section, decorative plasterwork scrolls. Similar neo-Classical inspired plaster ornamentation appears over the doors at the west end. The iron pendant lamps are equally ornate.

a hospital609 — *Recreation Hall, photographed in October 1992*

Brislington House remained in the ownership of the fox family until 1947 when it was purchased by the Governors of the United Bristol Hospitals and was used as a nurses’ home.

5175075854_46249b82d2_z — *Brislington House, undated photograph, perhaps from the time of the sale by the Health Authority in 1984. Image from flickr reproduced under creative commons license CC BY 2.0*

In 1948 it passed to the National Health Service and was put on the market by the South Western Regional health Authority in September 1984. It was then run as a private nursing home for some years before it was sold again and turned into private flats in 2001 and renamed Long Fox Manor.

The landscaped grounds and their importance as a part of the therapy for patients at Brislington House have been researched and written about by Sarah Rutherford (see studymore) and Clare Hickman, see her article on ‘The Picturesque at Brislington House, Bristol…’ in Garden History, vol.33, No.1 Summer, 2005, pp. 47-60.

References

Leonard Smith ‘A gentleman’s mad-doctor in Georgian England: Edward Long Fox and Brislington House’ in History of Psychiatry 2008, 19 (2), pp 163-184
The reference that I had for this was from Fox’s evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee on the state of Criminal and Pauper Lunatics in England and Wales of 1807. I cannot now find any such evidence from Fox to this Committee. Sarah Rutherford gives a reference to Fox giving evidence to the 1815 committee, but I can’t find that either. The quote is not from his evidence given in the late 1820s, nor does it match the report on the asylum in the 1815 committee, where the evidence was given by Edward Wakefield for Brislington House. Happy to be enlightened.
Nottinghamshire Record Office, SO/40 1/50/4/1
PP Report of the Committee on Madhouses in England, 11 July 1815, evidence of Edward Wakefield p.21

The Retreat, York

March 12, 2016February 3, 2022 / Harriet Richardson / Leave a comment

geograph-1164720-by-Gordon-Hatton — *The Retreat, Heslington Road, York, photographed in 2009 © Copyright Gordon Hatton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence*

More has perhaps been written about The Retreat since its foundation in the late-eighteenth century than almost any other psychiatric hospital in Britain. Alongside Bethlem it is probably the best known. The post here merely aims to provide a brief overview, principally of the buildings. The bare bones of its history are simply told. It was founded by the Society of Friends, and more particularly by William Tuke, as a lunatic asylum for fellow Quakers. The chief spur to its foundation was to provide an alternative to the York asylum, about which some serious questions were being raised regarding the treatment of patients there, particularly of the poorest class, and the conditions in which they were kept.

While the motive for the foundation may have derived from the Society’s spiritual beliefs, the groundwork was entirely practical. Recent works on asylum management and design were read, the new St Luke’s Hospital in London was visited and physicians consulted. But the choice of architect was less straight forward. In the 1790s there were still few purpose-built asylums in Britain, and the architectural profession was very much in its infancy. There were no particular specialists in institutional buildings, such jobs often went to the county surveyor. The top man locally, John Carr, might have been too expensive for the Society, but he had also been the architect of the York Asylum, and not only did the Society object to the management of that asylum, but it was also stylistically at variance with the Society’s preference for unostentatious buildings.

Screen Shot 2016-03-12 at 10.56.13 — *St Luke’s Hospital, print, London, England, 1785, from the Wellcome Library, Wellcome Images licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International*

And so they looked to one of their own faith, John Bevans, sometime carpenter and architect of London. He had never built a lunatic asylum before, and confessed that asylum planning ‘was a subject that never occupied my thoughts’, prior to his appointment. [1] However, there is some evidence that he was the designer of the Quaker Workhouse in Clerkenwell, completed in 1786, so not altogether irrelevant experience. [2] Along with William Tuke he visited and was impressed by St Luke’s Hospital in London, and aspects of the plan were adopted for The Retreat, albeit on a reduced scale. The wings were two instead of three storeys, flat ceilings substituted for arches, and there was a central stair rather than separate stairs in each wing. William Tuke and his son had also sketched out early plans as guidance, but as Bevans remained in London, a local architect, Peter Atkinson, was brought in to manage the construction, and draw up plans and elevations following Bevans’ directions. [3]

Before the plans could be finalised, money had to be raised and a site found. William Tuke, his son Henry and Lindley Murray raised funds by subscription from Friends throughout England and the site was acquired in 1793. When The Retreat opened in 1796 it comprised a central three-storeyed block with a recessed two-storeyed wing to the west. In the following year a corresponding wing was built to the east. The buildings were of plain brick with slate roofs.

*A view of the North Front of the Retreat near York, from Samuel Tuke’s* Description of the Retreat, *1813. Wellcome Library, London. Reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0*

Twenty-one years after the foundation of the asylum had been first considered, William Tuke’s grandson, Samuel, published a description of The Retreat. He related that the idea had been to establish ‘a retired Habitation, with necessary advice, attendance, &c. for the Members of our Society, …who may be in a state of Lunacy, or so deranged in mind (not Idiots) as to require such provision.’ [4]

From the outset the setting and the grounds were as important as the building itself. The founders wanted a site large enough to furnish a few acres of pasture land for cows and for gardens where the patients might take exercise. The financing was arranged on the established model of a voluntary hospital, whereby voluntary subscriptions were made towards the cost of running and maintaining the institution. Those subscribing over a certain amount could nominate poor patients on the lowest rates of admission, and could attend the governing committee meetings. [5]

*Extract from the 6-inch OS Map, published in 1853. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland.*

The central block contained the main entrance, and, on the ground floor, the kitchen, a dairy, pantry and larder on the north side, and a parlour and dining-room on the south side, as well as the principal stair. A corridor, eight feet wide, ran along the east-west axis of the whole building and the patients’ accommodation in the wings comprised single bed rooms, pump room, closets and day rooms placed either side of the corridor. As at earlier asylums, including St Luke’s and Bedlam in London, the patients’ single rooms were lit by a small window, placed high up in the wall.

*Ground plan of the Retreat near York, from Samuel Tuke’s* Description of the Retreat, *1813. Wellcome Library, London. Reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0*

The Retreat was opened on 11 May 1796 and the first three patients were admitted in June. A local physician was appointed to attend the patients. [6] The entrance retains its original pedimented doorcase but most of the windows have been refitted with modern sashes. The original sashes, of which only a few remained by 1992, were of iron with iron glazing bars; in order to give security without the appearance of bars one sash filled the whole height of the window but was only glazed in the lower part, and a second, moving, sash had glazing bars which, in the closed position, came exactly behind those of the first.

L0048418 Description of the Retreat — *Upper-floor plan of The Retreat, from Samuel Tuke’s* Description of the Retreat, *1813. Wellcome Library, London. Reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0*

The Retreat became the most influential asylum of its time, not so much in terms of its design, but in the treatment and care of the patients it admitted. Although the roles of William and his son Henry Tuke should not be underplayed, it was William’s grandson, Samuel, who was largely responsible for the wide sphere of influence of the hospital through his systematic study of lunacy and his publications, notably the Description of the Retreat of 1813. It was at his father’s request that Samuel began writing ‘a history and general account of the Retreat’ in 1811, but it was on his own initiative that he turned this into an opportunity for himself to read as many authors as he could come accross on the subject of insanity. He also read William Stark and Robert Reid’s accounts of the planning and design of the asylums at Glasgow and Edinburgh, both of whom had visited the Retreat. In 1812 he visited St Luke’s in London to discuss the ‘humane system’ with Thomas Dunston, the superintendent there, but was neither impressed by Dunston nor the asylum, which he considered was too prison-like in appearance.

a hospital573 — *One of the original-style of sash window at The Retreat, designed to look like a domestic sash window but modified to create ‘hidden’ iron bars to prevent patients from escaping*

On its publication, Tuke’s Description… was thrust to the fore in the subsequent controversy involving the York Asylum, and its physician, Dr Best, who took great and public exception to Tuke’s well considered work. If Best had hoped to blight the prospects of this rival asylum in York, he was doubly disappointed. Not only did he attract much publicity to the Retreat but to his own institution which was very soon exposed as corrupt in administration and inhumane in its treatment of the poorest inmates.

Neither Samuel Tuke nor John Bevans considered that the plan of the Retreat was a perfect model. Tuke considered that ‘an inferior plan well executed, may be more beneficial than a better system, under neglected managements’. [7] Tuke was also critical of the airing courts on the south side of the building which were bounded by eight foot high walls. Although the natural slope of the ground preserved a reasonable view of the surrounding countryside, Tuke nevertheless felt that the courts were too small and that they must appear uninviting to patients where ‘the boundary of his excursion is always before his eye; which must have a gloomy effect on the already depressed mind’. Another defect of the plan which Tuke noted in his Description… was the arrangement of patients’ rooms on either side of the corridors, or galleries: ‘for, though a large portion of light is admitted, by the window at each extremity of the building, yet, the galleries on the ground floor, at least, are rather gloomy’. [8]

Screen Shot 2016-03-12 at 11.40.51 — *Detail from a survey of The Retreat of 1828 by Watson and Pritchett. This shows the walled airing yards on the south side of the building that Samuel Tuke criticised. (Public Domain image)*

The treatment of the patients set the Retreat apart from its contemporaries, in particular the larger London asylums. Whilst the system of ‘moral management’ developed there did not necessarily have direct expression in the design of the building, it did have an effect and elements of building reflect the greater understanding of the needs of those afflicted with mental illness. The Tukes, and the early staff of the Retreat, rejected the widely held belief that lunatics were insensible to the usual comforts of the sane, such as warmth or an appreciation of their surroundings. At both Bedlam and St Lukes the windows in the patients’ cells were unglazed, as it was considered that lunatics were insensible to cold, and the ventilation helped to disipate the stench of soiled straw which formed the patients’ bedding. In response to their more enlightened views Bevans devised the iron-framed windows for the Retreat and the fires and stoves were provided with safety guards to protect the patients. Similar thought was given to the furnishings – curtains were designed specially without any element that could be misused by a patient to harm himself or others.

The Retreat quickly became a success and additional accommodation was soon required. The first addition of the west wing, part of the original design, was made almost as soon as the first phase of construction had been completed in 1796. In 1799 a building was added for male patients and a separate airing ground provided. This was the five-bay wing added at the south-east corner. It was appropriated to the more violent patients. Later, in 1803, a corresponding wing was added to the south-west corner for female patients. Further accommodation was still required and in 1810 a house near Walmgate Bar was acquired for £1,200. This house was, for a time, known as ‘the Appendage’. It was sold in 1823 to the Yorkshire Quarterly Meeting as a boys’ school. Another house was acquired in 1816 on Garrow Hill.

Screen Shot 2016-03-11 at 10.49.24 — Extract from the 6-inch OS map, revised in 1929, showing how The Retreat had been extended and added to, and also the encroaching suburbs of York. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland.

An annexe to the south, known as ‘the Lodge’ was built in 1816-17, rebuilt on a larger scale in 1875. In about 1827 the south-east wing was extended eastwards and two new wings had been added on the north corners replacing the stable block on the east and the brew house and bake house on the west. There was also an octagonal gate lodge on Heslington Road.

a hospital567 — *The Lodge, added to the south side of The Retreat, 1875. Photographed in 1993.*

a hospital568 — *Detail showing the central part of The Lodge with its elegant iron and glass veranda. Photographed in 1993*

Expansion continued in the second half of the nineteenth century, beginning with an appeal for building funds launched in 1852, resulting in another new wing in 1854. Further additions were made in 1858-60. Villas were acquired in 1879 (Belle Vue) and built in 1880 (East Villa) while from the 1890s the now ageing buildings were remodelled by Walter Brierley, and a new recreation room constructed in 1906. [9]

*The North-West wing of The Retreat. Begun in 1827, remodelled in the 1890s. Photographed in 1993.*

A nurses’ home was built in 1899, but a newer and larger one was built in the 1920s following a limited competition for the design. This was won by Chapman & Jenkinson of Sheffield. Bedrooms for fifty nurses were provided on the first and second floors, and a kitchen, dining-hall and sitting-rooms occupied the ground floor. It was constructed of local grey bricks with hand-made red brick and some stone dressings, and Westmorland slates for the roof. The contractors were William Birch & Sons of York and work was completed by 1929. [10]

The Retreat continues to provide specialist mental health care, occupying its original site and most of its original buildings, a testament to the success of the original founders and the validity of their ideals. (see theretreatyork.org.uk)

References

A. Digby, Madness, Morality and Medicine. A Study of the York Retreat, 1796-1914, 1984, p.18
Survey of London vol.46 South and East Clerkenwell, pp.341-2
Anne-Marie Akehurst ‘The York Retreat A Vernacular of Equality’, pp 81-4, in Peter Guillery, ed Built from Below British Architecture and the Vernacular, 2011
Samuel Tuke, Description of the Retreat, an institution near York for Insane Persons of the Society of Friends, 1813, p.26
Samuel Tuke, Description of the Retreat, an institution near York for Insane Persons of the Society of Friends, 1813, p.29
Samuel Tuke, Description of the Retreat, an institution near York for Insane Persons of the Society of Friends, 1813, p.46
Samuel Tuke, Description of the Retreat, an institution near York for Insane Persons of the Society of Friends, 1813, p.47-9
Samuel Tuke, Description of the Retreat, an institution near York for Insane Persons of the Society of Friends, 1813, p. 106
VCH
The Builder, 12 Feb. 1926, p.276; 26 April 1929, pp 764-76

Further Reading

This is far from comprehensive, but just a few key texts or books/articles that I have read and found interesting.

Anne-Marie Akehurst ‘The York Retreat A Vernacular of Equality’, pp 81-4, in Peter Guillery, ed Built from Below British Architecture and the Vernacular, 2011
Anne Digby, Madness, Morality and Medicine. A Study of the York Retreat, 1985
Barry Edginton, ‘The Design of Moral Architecture at the York Retreat’ in Journal of Design History, 2003 vol.16 (2) pp.103-117
H. C. Hunt, A Retired Habitation, A History of The Retreat, York, 1932
R. Hunter and I. Macalpine, Description of the Retreat… 1964
Samuel Tuke, Description of the Retreat, an institution near York for Insane Persons of the Society of Friends, 1813

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