The future of this fine old building is under threat. It has stood empty for many years and there are fears that it may be demolished, despite its important place in the local history of Grantham and in the wider history of hospital architecture in England.
Postcard of the hospital c.1900
A day of public celebration, parade and partying accompanied the ceremony of laying the foundation stone of Grantham Hospital on 29 October 1874. The band of the Royal South Lincoln Militia lead a procession, followed by the architect and builder, local dignitaries, and interested parties, that marched from Grantham Guildhall to the site of the new hospital on the Manthorpe Road to the north of the town centre.
Countess Brownlow, who was closely associated with the project from its inception, conducted the actual ceremony, once she had listened to an address by the chairman of the building committee, a short service by the Vicar, and been presented with a silver trowel. A public luncheon was given at the Guildhall presided over by Earl Brownlow. Tickets for this event could be purchased for 2s 6d. Earl Brownlow and his wife donated funds towards the hospital and took an interest in the plans, and the Earl of Dysart gave £1,000 to the building fund. [Grantham Journal, 24 Oct 1874, p.4]
Extract from the 25-inch OS map, surveyed in 1885. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland.
Extract from the 25-inch OS map, revised in 1903. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland. This shows extensions to the rear of the hospital and an additional block.
Grantham Cottage Hospital was designed by the London architect Richard Adolphus Came (1848-1919), who went on to lay out the development of Woodhall Spa in Lincolnshire where he later settled, designing many of its buildings. He appears in the 1901 census as the proprietor of the Royal Hydro Hotel there. Came freely adapted a basic pavilion plan to create a picturesque elevation. Unusually, the wards were T-shaped, an arrangement which was commended by the great champion of hospital architecture in the late 19th century, Henry C. Burdett. He thought the wards were novel, pleasing and noteworthy, presenting a cheerful and airy appearance ‘which fills the visitor with pleasure’.[H. C. Burdett, Cottage Hospitals, 2nd edition 1880 p.412]
Baroness Brownlow also officiated at the official opening on 5 January 1876. ‘As it now stands approaching completion, the building with its neatly arranged grounds, and trim Gothic porch, forms a somewhat picturesque object’, reported the Grantham Journal.
The hospital, which is Gothic in character, is constructed of local stone with Ancaster dressings, and consists of three distinct blocks of buildings. The main building, which faces the road … is composed of a central block of two stories, providing a waiting-room, entrance lobby, surgeons’ sitting-room and operating-room, kitchen, offices and store-rooms, &c. on the ground floor; convalescent and board rooms, and four bedrooms on the first floor; and two bedrooms and lumber room in attics. There are wings stretching right and left of this block, forming the wards for male and female patients, and containing seven beds each, together with nurses’ room, bathroom, and other offices. The Gothic timber porch, which certainly contributes much to the appearance of the building, has been erected at the expense of the Earl Brownlow. Some distance in the rear of the main building, the fever hospital has been erected, and will contain five beds, bathroom, nurses’ room, kitchen &c., the working of this department being kept entirely separate from the other part of the hospital. A convenient laundry is also provided, with the addition of washing and ironing rooms, drying closet, and other similar accommodation. [Grantham Journal, 8 Jan 1876, p.4]
A major extension to Grantham Hospital was built in the mid-1930s to designs by the local architect F. J. Lenton, of Traylen & Lenton. The plans were approved by the British Hospitals Association, the Ministry of Health and the County Council. It was partly as a result of Kesteven County Council’s obligation to provide hospital accommodation that Grantham Hospital was extended, and the enlarged hospital was to take patients from the county as a whole. This raised the number of beds provided in the hospital from 33 to 76 initially. A new entrance was formed to the south of the original building. New ward blocks ‘of the latest verandah type’ were built for men, women and children. There was also separate provision for private patients, a new isolation block and operating theatre unit.
Architectural perspective of the extensions to Grantham Hospital by F. J. Lenton, architect
Verandah wards with folding windows, usually occupying the length of one side, originated in Denmark, and were introduced to England by Charles Ernest Elcock at the County Hospital, Hertford. Beds were placed parallel to the the side walls in groups of four, separated by glass partitions, instead of the old pattern in Nightingale-style wards where the beds were placed in rows at right-angles to the side walls. Each ward had five groups of four beds and two separate observation wards. The south-facing children’s ward had a paved terrace in front of the folding windows to allow cots to be wheeled out into the open air.
Verandah wards were hailed as revolutionizing hospital planning by providing improved access to fresh air and sunshine, and the psychological effect of smaller groups of beds (‘cosy communities’). It is interesting to note that the local paper praised the hospital for its functional design. ‘Rigid economy’ was observed in order to be able to provide the most up-to-date equipment: ‘In past days Hospitals were so often designed for external effect first and foremost’… ‘present-day designers always have in mind that their building should not be monumental, but sufficient for the present, and of a type that can be readily altered or adapted to the possible requirements of the future. [Grantham Journal, 27 Jan 1934, p.5]
In the new hospital, the private wards occupied a separate unit to the west of the complex which had its own enclosed garden. It had six private wards, with bedrooms for special nurses and separate ward kitchens. A subterranean boiler house was constructed at the edge of the site to provide heating and hot-water, operating on the panel-heating system by low pressure hot water, accelerated by electric pumps. All pipework was concealed in the ceilings. This was supplemented in the wards either with conventional open coal fires or gas fires. The building contractors for the extension were Bernard Pumphrey Ltd of Gainsborough. [Grantham Journal, 22 Sept 1934, p.5]
Extract from the 6-inch OS map, revised in 1938. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland. This shows the extension to the south of the hospital.
The new buildings were completed early in March 1935, after which the old hospital was refurbished to provide accommodation for the nursing and domestic staffs. At the same time a maternity unit was created in the old south ward wing of and the old theatre converted into a special labour ward. These alterations brought the hospital’s capacity up to 100 beds. [Nottingham Evening Post, 24 March 1936.]
Further additions were made following transfer to the NHS, including a new maternity unit which opened in 1972. Grantham Hospital has retained huge local support, as witnessed by the demonstrations that took place earlier this year to protest against the drastic reduction of the opening hours of the A&E department.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Stone House Hospital chapel, photographed in 1992.
Stone House Hospital chapel, photographed in 1992.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The water tower and the service area of the main complex comprising boiler house, kitchens, stores and workshops. Photographed in 1992.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
See also
There are more photographs on the County Asylums website. St Albans out of sight out of mind for more photographs, and memories of working at the hospital. Lost Hospitals of London has further photographs, history and references. Crest Nicholson’s brochure and advertising for the redeveloped nurses’ home (Napsbury Quarters) can be found on their website. More information on William Goldring can be found on the Parks and Gardens website.
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.
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]
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.
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]
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.
The admin block of the general asylum, photographed after the rest of the huge asylum complex around it had been demolished. By Bilko123 at English Wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Small-town hero, Public Domain.
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.
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
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 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.
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]
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]
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.
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.
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’.
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.
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 wings
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]
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.
In January 1993 Robert Taylor wrote the tenth in his series of newsletters for the RCHME Hospitals Project team. The text below is primarily his, I have just updated the information in places and added the illustrations. At least two of the hospitals that he and Kathryn Morrison visited back then – Highfield Hospital, Droitwich and the Corbett Hospital, Stourbridge – have since been demolished. The ‘letter from Dorset’ is an account of the fieldwork undertaken in the county, further research was then carried out and reports of the sites written. These reports are deposited at Historic England’s Archives in Swindon. A list of the sites and their site record numbers is appended to the post, and I have added a brief note on their current status if they are no longer in use as a hospital or have been demolished.
Cruciform Observation Wards
During discussions with the Local Government Board in 1908-9 over the design for a new observation ward for the Croydon R.D.C. hospital, Christopher Chart of the firm of E. J. Chart of Croydon, came up with the idea of a cruciform block. His aim was to avoid structural problems met with in the design preferred by the L.G.B., with back-to-back wards, as well as to extend to hospitals the same principles that led to the prohibition of back-to-back houses. The resulting design was accepted, and the ward opened in 1911. It had a central octagonal duty room, and four arms each with three cubicles separated by plate-glass partitions and entered separately from external verandahs. The verandahs are against the East and West sides of the arms.
The Beddington Corner Hospital, near Croydon (later Wandle Valley Hospital). Plan of cruciform cubicle isolation block designed by Christopher Chart
Extract from the OS map surveyed in 1953-4, the left-hand cruciform block was the one built in 1911, that to the right added later. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
Detail of the map above. The walls of the cubicles are shown, and the glass-roofed verandahs indicated by the cross-hatching. The entire hospital has been demolished and the site redeveloped for housing.
In 1913 Cambridge Borough Council inspected a number of isolation hospitals before enlarging their hospitals, and decided to adopt a cruciform observation block like that at Croydon. Perhaps this is why they employed the same architect. The Cambridge ward was begun in 1914 and opened in 1915. Like the Croydon hospital, it had three cubicles in each arm, and the verandahs faced East and West. Several improvements were introduced. In the angle of the arms is a small sanitary block, entered only from the verandah.
How many cruciform wards were designed by Chart is not known, but his firm was described in The Hospital of 29 May 1915, pp 179-80, as having ‘specialised in this design of isolation hospitals’.
Portsmouth Isolation Hospital. Extract from the OS 25-inch map, revised in 1937-8. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
At Portsmouth two cruciform wards were built, one shortly before 1922 and the other probably completed in 1938. They have longer arms than the early wards, and the design is perhaps improved by having the verandahs on the south sides of the arms, and the sanitary blocks at the outer ends where they do not obscure the light.
Extract from the 2nd-edition OS Map revised in 1896, showing the location of the isolation hospital over the road from the union workhouse. Kingston Prison and Cemetery were to the north-west. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
References: C. Chart, ‘Observation Wards in Isolation hospitals’ in The Hospital, 26 June 1915, pp 277-9: H. F. Parsons, ‘Report on Isolation Hospitals, Supplement to the Annual Report of the Medical Officer of the Local Government Board’ PP, 1912-13, XXXVI, pp 76-7.
Droitwich
Highfield Hospital, Droitwich was founded by the Birmingham Hospital Saturday Fund as a convalescent home in 1917 (see Best of Healthfor more information on the Birmingham Hospital Saturday Fund, and for an old postcard showing Highfield Hospital see robmcrorie’s flickr page). Following the construction of the new Worcestershire Royal Hospital (a PFI hospital which opened in 2002), Highfield closed and has since been demolished.
Extract from the 6-inch OS Map, revised in 1902. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
In the early 1990s, a visit to the Highfield Hospital at Droitwich revealed some unexpected benefits enjoyed by the patients. The hospital then specialised in ‘rheumatic and locomotor disorders’ and patients who were used to hobbling around at home as best they could, had their movements more strictly controlled on the wards. Coded messages above the beds informed staff of the restrictions to be placed on the patients’ mobility: CTB = confined to bed; WTT = walk to toilet. Under these conditions the nurse who provided a messenger service between the wards and the local betting shop was doubtless maintaining a necessary service. Those patients who were mobile were allowed to walk in the meadow behind the hospital. One of the amenities of this field was the back door to a nearby public house.
Corbett Hospital
The original Corbett hospital in Stourbridge stood on top of a hill with a magnificent view that included the glass works and before it was turned into a hospital it had been the home of the glass manufacturer, George Mills. Mills, who suffered from mental illness, committed suicide in November 1885, and his house (The Hill) was acquired by John Corbett, a salt producer. Corbett converted the house into a hospital, which opened in 1893.
Nearly a hundred years later, it was still functioning. At that time there was a cardiac recovery ward on the first floor of the main pavilion of the grand rebuilding scheme of 1931. The ground floor had been designed as the entrance to the hospital but had been put to other uses. Above the entrance porch was a sun room, then a ward, and the usual service section with bathroom and toilets, duty room, private ward and so on. The entrance had been moved to an insignificant position in the main corridor, and was difficult to find. The ironwork of the staircase was pleasant, but it was the ward itself that proved to be a surprise. Instead of the usual Nightingale-style room with windows on either side, a cross-wall divided the space into two, with the sixteen beds in the ward arranged parallel to the outside walls. This was the original arrangements, not a response to the high incidence of cardiac trouble in Stourbridge. It was an up-to-date arrangement at the time, though not one that Miss Nightingale would have approved of, nor would she have liked the small cubic space per patient, the result of low ceilings, or the bustle of a busy ward with much coming and going, and doctors on continuous duty. The sun room at the end of the ward was the only quiet place, as the patients weren’t well enough to be able to use it – and once they were well enough to do so, they were discharged.
The hospital was demolished in 2007, having been replaced in 2005 by a new building erected in the grounds. There are photographs and a full history of the site on the Amblecote History Society website.
A letter from Dorset, January 1993
Dorset proved an attractive but disappointing county. The landscape was on a larger scale than expected, and the hospitals on a smaller scale than anticipated. Poole and Bournemouth provided an urban contrast to this rural county, but their major hospitals had been demolished or were being demolished at the time of our visit.
Extract from Bartholomew’s half-inch maps of England and Wales, published in 1902, showing Poole harbour and Bournemouth. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
Workhouses here in the 1830s did not have any physically separate infirmaries as did those further West, but had the infirm in the main building. Only at Poole did a separate infirmary seem to have been added, and that was all that remained of the workhouse. Wareham was the only workhouse where we know that an isolation block was built, and at Weymouth the V. D. block was the only building to have been demolished in what looked through the scaffolding like a very thorough remodelling. Perhaps the only pleasure came at Cerne where we saw the giant lying deep in the shadows of this grassy hillside.
Extract from the 2nd-edition OS map, surveyed in 1886 showing Poole Union Workhouse. The infirmary was added to the north in 1903 (see also workhouses.org). Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
As usual isolation hospitals were elusive, except at Poole. Weymouth had a large iron hospital of 1902 that had unfortunately been reclad in 1984, and the holiday camp at the same town was almost as bad. In its days as a hospital it had belonged to the Port Sanitary Authority but the wards had been given an extra storey with cantilevered balconies to house the holidaymakers, who had to try and sleep above the pool tables and other delights installed in the wards below.
Weymouth isolation hospital, extract from the 2nd-edition OS map revised 1926-7. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
We managed to get the car completely covered in mud looking for the Sherborne hospitals, but sadly a farmer had beaten us to it and converted the site into a yard for vehicles that managed like us to get through the mud. The architects of the general hospitals appear to have been unusually keen to disguise their buildings and hide any wards. A classic pavilion hospital at Bournemouth was destroyed with a ball and chain as we watched, although another at the Naval Hospital at Portland survived our gaze. In contrast the county hospital at Dorchester was heavily disguised as a Jacobean country house, and its counterpart at Weymouth was taller and almost as inscrutable. Only a huge inscription told us what the building was.
Most of the cottage hospitals were so small that it seemed that the architects did not bother to make them look like anything at all. By contrast the Yeatman Hospital at Sherborne was a magnificent exercise in Gothic, and the Westminster Hospital at Shaftesbury was fairly good, but neither looked much like a hospital to start with, and both were smothered in modern additions. Bridport had a pretty little hospital that looked like a hospital, was cottagey in scale, and ought to have been listed; it was a rare ray of sunlight. (The hospital has since been demolished, a housing development stands on the site, and a new community hospital has been built on the north side of Bridport.)
The Royal Naval Hospital for infectious diseases, and the sick quarters, at Castletown, on the north side of Portland. Extract from the 2nd-edition OS Map, revised in 1901. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
The Sick Quarters can be seen still under construction in the OS map surveyed in 1889. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
Extract from the 2nd-edition OS map revised in 1926-7. The sick quarters were extended and developed into a general hospital, the Royal Navy left in 1957 and it became an NHS hospital, and remains a part of the present Portland Community Hospital. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
To the east of the isolation hospital and sick quarters was an earlier naval hospital, by Balaclava Bay. It had been demolished by the 1920s. Extract from the 2nd-edition OS Map, revised in 1901. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
Portland Naval Base gave us a first that we did not really appreciate at the time, an underground hospital. The presence of some subterranean installation was obvious from the clutch of old concrete vents and single small access ramp, but it was not apparently very large, and seemed to be something like an air-raid shelter serving the above-ground hospital. Drawings at Acton showed that it was in fact a small hospital, attached to the main institution. (There was an out-store for the National Monuments Record at Acton, these plans should now be at Historic England’s archives at Swindon. The plans may have been part of the Common Services Agency collection. For photographs and more information on the underground hospital see the urbanexplorer.)
Bournemouth was full of convalescent homes, and the problems of identification and investigation finally defeated us’ most were hardly worth chasing, and the difficulty of distinguishing between purpose-built and converted buildings made the exercise unfruitful. St Anne’s was the exception, a great curve overlooking the sea and designed by Weir Schultz for convalescing lunatics. (This was the seaside branch of the Holloway Sanatorium, built in 1909-12)
Dorset County Asylum, later Herrison Hospital, now converted into private housing, named Charlton Down. Extract from the 2nd-edition OS Map revised 1900-1. The private wing (Herrison House) was built to the north-west of the main range, and the western half of the complex above was built first. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
The Dorset lunatics were first cared for at a house at Forston given to the county in the 18th century; it was in the bottom of a narrow valley, the sort of site that was never used for asylums or hospitals. In the middle of the 19th century a more conventional hilltop site not far way was bought, and the new asylum went through most of the usual processes of enlargement. This included about 1900 a large and separate block for paying patients. Although we did not get inside because it had since changed function, the entrance hall and the exterior appearance declared that this was not for the common or pauper madman, but for someone with more refined taste. The exterior was an elaborate riot of terracotta ornament, rather like Digby’s at Exeter, but here there were no workshops or laundries for toiling patients, and the whole resembled a country house set in its gardens.
Hospital sites recorded as part of the RCHME Hospitals Survey, with grid references and the National Buildings Record number. The files for these sites can be seen at Historic England Archives, Kemble Drive Swindon. See also Dorset
DORSET
ALLINGTON Bridport Isolation Hospital In the 1960s this was North Allington Hospital for chest diseases. It has been demolished and a new community hospital built on the site SY 456 939: 100478
BLANDFORD FORUM Blandford Community Hospital (Blandford Cottage Hospital) ST 884 069: 100466
BOURNEMOUTH Herbert Hospital (Herbert Memorial Convalescent Home) SZ 065 903: 100452 Kings Park Community Hospital (Bournemouth Sanitary Hospital; Bournemouth Municipal Hospital) SZ 118 924: 100403 Royal National Hospital (Royal National Sanatorium for Consumption) Now a gated complex, providing ‘assisted living’ accommodation, or retirement apartments. SZ 083 914: 100243 Royal Victoria and West Hampshire Hospital, Shelley Road Branch (Boscombe Hospital; Royal Boscombe and West Hampshire Hospital) Demolished SZ 111 923: 100401 Royal Victoria and West Hampshire Hospital, Victoria Branch (Royal Victoria Hospital) Converted into flats – Royal Victoria Apartments, tile panels moved to the new Royal Bournemouth Hospital SZ 076 915: 100402
BRIDPORT Bridport General Hospital demolished SY 459 932: 100419 Port Bredy Hospital (Bridport Union Workhouse) Converted into housing SY 469 931: 100477
CHARMINSTER Herrison Hospital (Dorset County Asylum) Converted into housing SY 678 947: 100244
CHRISTCHURCH Christchurch Hospital (Christchurch Union Workhouse Infirmary) The workhouse was latterly known as Fairmile Hospital The infirmary partly survives but the former workhouse buildings have been demolished. SZ 148 939: 100461
CORFE CASTLE Wareham Council Smallpox Hospital Converted into housing SY 941 843: 100670
DORCHESTER Damers Hospital (Dorchester Union Workhouse) Original workhouse largely demolished, new district hospital built on land to the north in the 1970s-80s SY 687 903: 100475 Dorchester Isolation Hospital demolished, Winterbourne Hospital built on site in the 1980s-90s SY 689 891: 100418 Dorset County Hospital converted into flats SY 691 906: 100417 Royal Horse Artillery Barracks Hospital This may actually still be standing – or was in 2014, now within a trading estate SY 686 909: 100476
LYME REGIS Lyme Regis Hospital Seemingly a nursing home in 2015 SY 336 921: 100422
POOLE Alderney Hospital (Poole BC Isolation Hospital; Alderney Isolation Hospital) Most of the original ward blocks have been demolished SZ 042 943: 100465 Poole General Hospital (Cornelia Hospital; Cornelia and East Dorset Hospital) rebuilt in the 1960s-70s SZ 020 913: 100464 Poole Hospital (Poole Union Workhouse) rebuilt as the Harbour Hospital, the former workhouse infirmary incorporated into St Mary’s Maternity Hospital SZ 018 914: 100404 St Anne’s Hospital (St Anne’s Sanatorium) SZ 052 888: 100463
PORTLAND Portland Hospital (Royal Naval Hospital) SY 685 741: 100481
SHAFTESBURY Westminster Memorial Hospital (Westminster Memorial and Cottage Hospital) ST 860 228: 100487
SHERBORNE Coldharbour Hospital demolished ST 643 176: 100066 Sherborne Isolation Hospital demolished ST 622 173: 100425 Sherborne School Sanatorium extended ST 635 166: 100424 Yeatman Memorial Hospital (Yeatman Hospital) extended ST 636 167: 100483
ST LEONARD’S AND ST IVES St Leonard’s Hospital (104th US General Hospital) largely demolished, just a few or the EMS huts were extant in 2015 SU 102 020: 100468
STURMINSTER NEWTON Sturminster Union Workhouse partly demolished – the front range survives with new buildings to the rear, used as a day centre and a centre for adults with learning disabilities ST 787 148: 100426
SWANAGE Dorset Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital extended and converted into private housing SZ 033 782: 100467 Swanage Cottage Hospital SZ 028 784: 100406
WAREHAM TOWN Christmas Close Hospital (Wareham and Purbeck Union Workhouse) some of the ancillary buildings have been demolished, and it has been converted into housing – Robert Christmas House – with the hospital moved into the c.1960s block adjacent SY 918 874: 100407
WEYMOUTH Portway Hospital (Weymouth Union Workhouse) converted into housing, some parts demolished SY 675 785: 100479 Westhaven Hospital (Weymouth Corporation Isolation Hospital) seems to have been completely rebuilt in about the 1980s SY 660 795: 100421 Weymouth and District Hospital (Princess Christian Hospital and Sanatorium) original buildings demolished, hospital largely redeveloped in about the 1960s SY 682 803: 100480 Weymouth and Dorset County Royal Eye Infirmary now a hospice SY 683 803: 100423 Weymouth Port Sanitary Authority Hospital the wards still extant in the midst of Chesil Beach Holiday Park SY 666 762: 100420
WIMBOURNE MINSTER Victoria Hospital (Victoria Cottage Hospital) numerous additions and alterations, but still in use SU 004 002: 100405
Bak in 2016 the future of the former Galashiels Cottage Hospital seemed to be uncertain once again. When the Borders District General Hospital opened at Melrose in 1988, it had been intended that the cottage hospitals at Galashiels and Selkirk should close permanently, but the local health board changed its mind and decided it could find a new use for the buildings. For Galashiels, that new use was a rehabilitation unit for people with long-term mental health problems, and it re-opened as such under the name Galavale House. But more recently there have been concerns that the standard of accommodation is not longer fit for purpose, and a scheme was under consideration in 2015 to relocate services to Crumhaugh House, Hawick. However, when I visited the Galashiels in September, it was still very much in use.
In 2006 Galavale House and lodge were listed category C (s) for their architectural and local historic interest. The origins of the hospital date back to 1891 when subscriptions were first raised for a cottage hospital in the town. Originally it was intended to be for accident cases, but in the end it took in medical and surgical cases, though paupers were excluded. Sick paupers were cared for at the local poorhouse.
Galashiels Cottage Hospital, engraved view from Building News, 1893
Built to designs by John Wallace of Edinburgh, the hospital was formally opened by the Earl of Dalkeith in November 1893. Wallace was originally from the Borders, and the few architectural commissions that he is known to have carried out were all in this area. In 1891, the year before he was commissioned to design the cottage hospital, he had designed Blynlee Tower in Galashiels.
The plan below was not as executed, only the front wards were built, so at first there were just two wards with six beds each, and two single wards for private patients. The local building firm of Robert Hall & Co. carried out the construction work.
Detail showing the proposed plan of the hospital.
Extract from the Galashiels & Selkirk Almanac and Directory of 1903
As built, the hospital comprised an appealing small scale building. The wide single‑storey centrepiece of the main block has generous roofs with dormers, and the eaves are supported on cast‑iron columns to create a verandah. The wards in the projecting outer bays are lit by broad bay windows.
A small nurses’ home was built on the site with thirteen bedrooms in 1929-30 to designs by the local architects J. & J. Hall, John Hall was the nephew of Robert Hall, the builder of the original hospital. In 1938 extensions were built, in sympathetic style, to the south-west (Hume Ward) and north. In that year four beds were set aside for maternity cases.
Extract from the 25-inch OS map revised in 1930. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
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.
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.
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.
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]
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]
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.
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.
South-east elevation of the main range, 1992
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.
Detail of chapel window, the rendering was quite decayed in places in 1992, it has since been repaired and painted.
Memorial window in the chapel, from St Luke’s Church, Brislington.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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]
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.
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.
The Lodge, added to the south side of The Retreat, 1875. Photographed in 1993.
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 EastClerkenwell, 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
Holloway Sanatorium was in a parlous state when we visited it in about 1992 as part of the RCHME Hospitals Project. Although the process of decay was sad to see, the stunning interior decoration was still impressive. In 1997-8 the main rooms in the building were restored, the artwork re-instated and the site developed as a gated residential estate, rebranded Virginia Park.
Elevation of Holloway Sanatorium printed in The Graphic, 2 June 1877
Recreation Hall, Holloway Sanatorium, W. H. Crossland architect, photographed c.1992
The sanatorium was founded by Thomas Holloway, of Holloway’s Pills and Ointment fame, for the mentally afflicted of the middle classes. Its architect was W. H. Crossland, who won a competition for the design in 1872. The foundation stone was laid by Holloway’s wife Jane in 1873. Although it was described as nearly finished in 1877, it was another seven years before the first patients were admitted in 1884, and the official opening ceremony did not take place until 15 June 1885. By then Thomas Holloway was dead, the project having been completed under the direction of his brother-in-law, George Martin Holloway.
‘All exuberance of ornament and expensive detail is avoided’ was the claim, but the building itself rather belies that statement. [1]
The sanatorium was intended for the middle classes only, with a particular view to accommodating professional men who were thought likely benefit from a year’s residence in a quiet rural neighbourhood. [2] This was incidentally the type of patient most likely to be able to afford the highest rate of fees for such a stay. A year was the maximum length of stay permitted. Certain conditions were excluded, including those deemed incurable, so no hopeless cases or, in the language of the time, epileptic, paralytic, and uncleanly subjects were all inadmissible. [3]
Holloway thoroughly researched asylum planning and the treatment of the mentally ill before announcing a competition for the design. He was said to have visited asylums at home and abroad, and consulted numerous architects and the members of the medical profession.
Initially there was accommodation for 200 patients, divided into four classes, 1st, 2nd, sick and feeble, and excited. All day-rooms, dormitories and single rooms had a south and south-western aspect. Attendants’ rooms were placed between day-rooms and dormitories with a glass window or doors of communication that allowed them to keep the patients under observation.
Some of the interior decoration, notably the ceiling of the recreation hall, was carried out by the Scottish architect and designer John Moyr Smith. The walls of the dining hall had frescoes after Watteau, variously reported as being executed in the National Art Training School at South Kensington under the direction of Edward Poynter or by James Imrie, though both statements may be correct. When the sanatorium opened the medical press thought the wall decorations betrayed the influence of ‘Japanese artistic methods’. [4]
Above is one of the Watteau-inspired paintings in the dining-hall, painted on canvas rather than frescoed, with a pastoral scene of grazing sheep in the lunette over it.
The richness of the interior for a mental hospital is perhaps rivalled only by Craighouse in Edinburgh, at least in Britain. Tellingly, Pugin was consulted by Holloway in the early stages of the project. As well as the huge recreation hall and dining-hall, according to one report the sanatorium was intended to have a billiards room, thirteen day rooms, and no less than four libraries for the use of the patients, ‘well stocked with readable books’ (always the best sort). [5]
The decorative scheme certainly seems to give more than a nod to Pugin, with echoes of the Houses of Parliament, and at the time the sanatorium opened The Builder considered that its only equal in richness was the House of Lords. It fell foul of the next generation of architects – C. R. Ashbee commented that it was ‘very garish and ghastly, but appropriate’. [6]
The hammer-beam roof of the recreation hall evokes Tudor splendour, modelled on examples such as the hall at the Middle Temple or Hampton Court Palace. Crossland had produced something similar for his Rochdale Town Hall.
The central grand entrance and staircase were originally intended only to be used on special occasions. Every inch was covered with gilding or bright colour, apart from the parquet wood floor and the marble top of the staircase balustrade.
In the early 1990s the portraits were the most badly decayed, and there were chunks of painted plaster lying on the floor. Depicting ‘distinguished persons’ the portraits were said to have been the work of Ernest Girardot and others. [7]
The portrait above may be of Thomas Holloway himself, watching over the patients and staff. His portrait, and that of his wife, graced the interior, along with his coat of arms and family monograms, a constant reminder of the founder.
References
The Builder, 24 Aug 1872, p.665
BMJ 20 June 1885, pp 1258-9
The Graphic, 2 June 1877, p.521
BMJ 20 June 1885, pp 1258-9: The Star, 18 June 1885, p. 4: British Architect, 26 June 1885, p.311
Frome Times, 27 Nov 1878, p.3
quoted in Anna Sheperd, Institutionalizing the Insane in Nineteenth Century England, 2015, p.24
