Lamel Beeches (former Medical Superintendent's house for The Retreat)

Lamel Beeches is a house with walled forecourt and outbuildings built in 1908–1909 to designs by Walter Brierley as the medical superintendent's house for The Retreat, a mental asylum operated by The Society of Friends (Quakers). The building is designed in the Queen Anne style, drawing inspiration from late 17th-century and early 18th-century domestic architecture.

Materials and Construction

The house is constructed of handmade red-orange bricks laid in English bond, with brick and tile dressings. The roofs are covered in green Westmorland slate and feature tall brick chimney stacks with decorative brick quoining and cornices. A row of outbuildings is built of the same handmade red-orange brick with a slate roof. The forecourt has side walls of handmade red-orange brick, brick paths, steps and a terrace with stone dressings.

Plan and Setting

The house has an L-shaped plan. The main range runs east-west and contains the principal rooms, with a verandah and balcony facing south onto the garden. The front entrance and projecting service wing are on the north side. Between the north side of the house and The Retreat boundary wall along Heslington Road is a rectangular forecourt with a gateway and path aligned with the front doorway. On the north side of the service wing is a row of single-storey outbuildings running east-west against the outer boundary wall.

The house stands in the north-west corner of The Retreat grounds, close to the boundary wall and separate from the main hospital building. The south garden elevation faces Lamel Hill, an Anglo-Saxon tumulus which is a Scheduled Monument, also enclosed within the walled grounds of The Retreat, a registered Park and Garden.

Exterior: North Front

The house is two storeys high with a partial basement beneath the service wing. The elevations are irregular, with a stepped brick and tile string course between the ground and first floors of the main range (but not the service wing). Windows have projecting tile sills, some with segmental brick lintels over square-headed frames. The roofs are hipped with sprocketed eaves, and there are four tall rectangular brick stacks with decorative quoining and cornices. Windows have moulded timber frames painted white and comprise a combination of horned hung sashes, casements and fixed frames.

The north front is L-shaped, with the main range set back behind a terrace and the service wing projecting on the left. The main range has a deep catslide roof to the left bay and a two-storey hipped bay to the right. The front doorway, positioned to the left of the right-hand hipped bay, has two stone steps and a white-painted timber frame with upper side lights of diamond-set small-pane leaded glass. A deep round-headed and shaped moulded timber hood is supported on elaborately carved timber scroll brackets. The painted timber door has three horizontal fielded panels decreasing in depth from the bottom. To the right is a small vertical rectangular transom window with two small-pane leaded lights. In the centre of the first floor is a small square window with cross glazing bars. To the left of the doorway is a horizontal simplified Venetian window lighting the hall, with a brick soldier lintel featuring a giant keystone of brick slivers and small-pane leaded light glazing. The central segmental light has two casements covered by external secondary glazing. Above, in the catslide roof, is a flat-roofed horizontal dormer with three small-pane leaded lights, the central light being a side-hung casement.

The west elevation of the service wing has two storeys with a hipped roof to the centre, continuing as a catslide to the left-hand outer bay, and a steeply pitched roof to the right-hand bay where it attaches to the main range. It contains a stair window set under the eaves and oversailed on the right by the catslide roof of the main range. The window has a cross frame with small-pane leaded glazing, a side-hung casement to the lower left with an external curved sliding window stay, and a top-hung casement to half of the upper right. Other irregularly placed windows include three six-over-six pane hung sashes and a small vertical rectangular window of six panes. A basement window has a louvred frame. The catslide has tile corbels to the outer corners.

The north elevation of the service wing is hidden behind the forecourt wall. There is a large round-headed doorway with steps towards the right-hand corner, fitted with panelled double doors with upper glazing lights. Irregularly placed windows of differing sizes all have small-pane glazing. Above is a hipped dormer with three lights of small-pane glazing. In front is a full-length passageway with a pedestrian doorway at both ends, flanked on the north side by a row of single-storey brick outbuildings. These have horizontal multi-pane window frames with tile sills and segmental-arched heads. The slate lean-to roof is set against The Retreat boundary wall and hidden by the forecourt wall and a higher wall with sloping diagonally angled brick coping at the east end.

Exterior: South Garden Elevation

The south garden elevation of the main range is two storeys and five bays with a hipped roof. The third bay projects and has decorative quoin tiles to the first floor above the string course and a hipped roof. On the ground floor is a large tripartite window with small-pane glazing to the hung sashes. On the first floor is a similar but slightly narrower tripartite window. The right-hand return has vertical rectangular windows on both floors with small-pane hung sashes. The left-hand return has a similar window on the ground floor and a square brick pier with stone head and foot towards the outer corner supporting the timber balcony running the length of the first and second bays. The balcony is also supported on three circular brick columns with rusticated banding and stone capitals and bases (presently covered in ivy), and another square pier towards the outer south-west corner of the main range. The ground floor has two adjacent double French doors opening onto the verandah, which has a herringbone brick floor. The French doors are white-painted timber with partial small-pane glazing and rectangular overlights with small-pane glazing. The balcony has shaped timber beams and a timber balustrade with square posts, moulded rails and turned balusters, all stained dark brown. A modern metal rail is presently affixed to the top of the posts to raise the height of the balustrade. The first floor has two widely spaced double French doors opening onto the balcony. These doors have moulded lower panels and small-pane glazing. To the right of the projecting third bay the ground floor has a single central window with an eight-over-eight pane hung sash frame, with two six-over-six pane hung sashes on the first floor.

Exterior: East Elevation

The east elevation has two central recessed bays with a steeply pitched roof flanked by projecting hipped bays, the roof continuing as a catslide to the right-hand outer side. The ground floor of the two-bay central section has a shallow porch with leaded lean-to roof and a half-glazed door with an overlight and side light to the left. Adjacent to the right is a horizontal multi-pane window, with a similar first-floor window above and a larger multi-pane casement window over the porch. The projecting hipped two bays to the left have a six-over-six pane hung sash on the ground floor and a four-over-four hung sash on the first floor, close to the right-hand corner. The two similar windows towards the left-hand outer corner have been replaced by a modern two-storey enclosed corridor linking the house to modern extensions (neither of special interest and excluded from the listing). The hipped bay to the right projects further, with a four-over-four pane hung sash to the return first floor. The first floor has a large eight-over-eight pane hung sash, with two six-over-six pane hung sashes on the ground floor. The basement level is covered by an attached modern double garage (not of special interest and excluded from the listing). A basement window and a window now converted to a doorway remain within the garage.

Exterior: West Elevation

The hipped two-bay west elevation of the main range has two six-over-six pane hung sashes on the first floor. On the ground floor the second bay has an eight-over-eight pane hung sash, with a modern single-storey enclosed corridor to the left linking to modern extensions (neither of special interest and excluded from the listing), and immediately to the left a small square window with cross glazing bars.

Interior

The ground-floor layout remains largely intact, with more extensive alterations on the first floor, which was latterly used as a dining room and kitchen for the care home, though the original layout remains readable. Many original fixtures and fittings survive, mostly painted white. These include moulded cornices, three-panelled doors, moulded architraves, built-in cupboards, main and back staircases, several fireplaces, and decorative iron window catches and curved sliding window stays.

The front door opens into a small rectangular entrance lobby with a red tiled floor with moulded skirting and plastered groin vault. A circular borrowed light has multi-pane glazing. A wide two-panel inner door to the left has an octagonal upper light with leaded panes of deep green glass and moulded timber frame. It opens into a rectangular hall with moulded cornice, picture rail and skirting. The lobby door is paired with a three-panelled door leading into a lobby to the study at the west end of the house. Both doors are set in round-headed niches with a separating panelled pier. Two corresponding round-headed open arches at the opposite end of the hall screen the main staircase. The staircase rises against the far side of the left arch, which has a painted panelled dado surmounted by a framed timber balustrade with slender turned and painted balusters. The open-well staircase has a closed string with painted panelling beneath. The ramped inner balustrade has painted turned balusters, unpainted moulded timber handrail and square newel posts with a carved scroll bracket at the half landing. On the first floor the outer side of the staircase has panelled piers with inset balustraded frames, now infilled behind the balustrading.

On the south side of the hall (originally opening off it) is the large drawing room with a moulded cornice and a bay window and French doors opening onto the verandah. In the centre of the east side wall is a fireplace with a painted moulded and panelled timber mantelpiece with a dark blue-green tiled surround, hearth and fender. To either side a narrow round-headed archway has been inserted linking to the dining room. A panelled timber window seat wraps round the square bay with shaped outer arms.

The dining room in the south-east corner has a moulded cornice and original doors into the hall and a former serving room on the north side.

In the south-west corner is the study with a three-panelled door, moulded cornice and French doors opening onto the verandah. The inner wall has a fireplace with a painted moulded timber mantelpiece with beige tiled surround and hearth, and a built-in panelled cupboard and shelving to the left.

The kitchen (now subdivided) retains the large fireplace with a timber mantel also over built-in panelled cupboards to the left, with a tall built-in cupboard with panelled double doors to the right.

At the north end of the service wing is the back staircase. It has an inner timber balustrade with square and rectangular newel posts, slender square balusters and a moulded handrail, with a moulded dado rail to the outer walls.

The first-floor north corridor has a central square window bay flanked by two built-in cupboards and a doorway at both ends, all with three-panelled doors. The opened-out rooms on the south side retain beams marking the original layout, two double French doors and a built-in cupboard with panelled door in the north-west corner.

Beneath the service wing are a series of basement rooms, two retaining stone benches.

Forecourt Walls, Paths, Steps and Terrace

Between the round-headed gateway in the Heslington Road boundary wall (listed as part of The Retreat) and the north elevation of the main range is a rectangular forecourt which rises towards the house. It is enclosed to each side by a high wall of brick in English bond with a coping of diagonally set bricks with a square brick ridge.

The east wall runs between the boundary wall and the north-west corner of the service wing and is ramped up at the right-hand end. It has a segmental-arched doorway with a stone sill towards the right-hand south end through to the external service wing passageway, with a second blocked doorway to the left (into the outbuildings). The west wall is similarly built, with an opening at the left-hand south end onto the terrace in front of the house, before returning to abut the north-west corner of the main range.

In front of the boundary gateway is a flat circular platform of herringbone brickwork bounded by low brick walls with stone coping and stone-topped steps to each side and the middle rear. A straight brick herringbone path leads from the middle steps towards the front door with a flight of stone-topped steps at the midpoint with brick side walls with stone coping. In front of the main range is a narrow brick terrace with a herringbone brick surface and stone edging and a central recessed flight of curved stone-topped steps. A herringbone brick path also leads from the left steps of the circular platform to the service wing doorway in the east wall.

The modern two-storey enclosed corridors linking the house to modern extensions, and the modern double garage, are not of special architectural or historic interest and are excluded from the listing.