St Nicholas Hospital

St Nicholas Hospital, Jubilee Road, Gosforth

This is a city asylum, now disused hospital, built between 1865 and 1869 by WL Moffatt of Edinburgh for the County Borough of Newcastle. It was formerly known as Newcastle Upon Tyne City Asylum and also as Coxlodge Asylum. The building underwent mid-20th century alterations and additions.

The structure is constructed of coursed squared stone with ashlar dressings and features gabled and hipped slate roofs with coped ridge and side wall stacks. Plinth and quoins are present throughout. The architectural style is Italianate. Windows are glazing bar and plain sashes, with some reglazed in the late 20th century within original openings. Ground floor windows are boarded. The building follows a cruciform corridor plan, with a central block comprising offices, kitchen, dining room, chapel, and superintendent's house. On either side are wings containing gallery wards, with cross wings and end pavilions. The building is orientated east-west with the entrance front facing north.

The entrance front spans 9 bays and features a slightly projecting tower porch with recessed round-arched panelled doors flanked by rusticated pilasters and topped with a sham balustrade. Above the doors is a round-arched window. Above this sits a square tower with round-arched recessed panels under half-hipped dormers, each with a blank roundel over a paired round-arched window. The tower is topped with a square wooden turret with round-arched openings and pyramidal roof. Flanking the porch are three windows with cast iron sham balconies. Above these are two round-arched windows under half-hipped dormers, then a flat-headed window, also with cast iron balconies. At each end of the range is a square projection; the right projection has a tripartite mullioned window and above it a round-arched window under a half-hipped dormer, while the left projection has a canted stone bay window with above a tripartite sash under a half-hipped dormer.

To the left is the superintendent's house, two storeys. To the right is an ashlar doorcase with panelled pilasters and cornice on scroll brackets, with a plain door with overlight above which are two plain sashes. Beyond this are ward ranges with regular fenestration and central projections, added in the mid-20th century and two storeys high. In the angle with the cross wings stands a square corner tower with pyramidal roof, topped with a square tapered ventilating shaft in two stages. This shaft has plain openings on each side at the upper stage and a pyramidal roof with dentillated cornice and wind vane.

The south front features a projecting central block, two storeys, with modillion eaves to a hipped roof, topped with a square wooden turret set diagonally. This turret has round-arched openings and a square domed roof with finial. A central segmental-headed door and overlight are flanked by two glazing bar windows, all with segmental-headed rusticated surrounds and keystones. Above, on a sill band, are five round-arched glazing bar windows with keystones. Returns have similar fenestration. In the return angles are square towers, three stages plus attics, with pyramidal roofs. These include canted stone bay windows with balustrades and above them tripartite sashes, then triple sashes, and in the attics three small square lights. Ward ranges, two storeys with eighteen windows, have regular fenestration with a hipped central projection containing four windows. The left wing has a single-storey addition from around 1960 running the width of the range. Cross wings end in square pavilions, two storeys, each with three windows on each floor and a square wooden ventilation cupola set diagonally.

Internally, the central dining room measures five by four bays and has a central arcade with shallow segmental arches carried on round cast iron columns with simple bases and capitals. On each side, beams and cornices are carried on octagonal cast iron columns with moulded bases and capitals. The first floor chapel is divided by a central arcade of three bays with three moulded ashlar elliptical arches carried on square piers which transform to octagons, with matching responds. Matchboard dado extends to sill level. Window shafts have foliage capitals. The roof comprises two collar purlin roofs with king posts and moulded arch braces on keeled shaft corbels. Roll-moulded round-arched openings are found in the chapel and adjoining corridors. Ward ranges retain some original doors with spy holes. The entrance range and superintendent's house contain several rooms with original cornices and doors, one featuring a coved ceiling and fireplace. A wooden dogleg stair with square newels is located in a stairwell with cornice, coved ceiling, and pyramidal skylight.