The Lawn

LINCOLN

SK9771NW UNION ROAD 1941-1/8/385 (West side) 02/10/69 The Lawn

GV II*

Mental hospital, now a museum, meetings and entertainment centre. Built 1820. By Richard Ingleman of Southwell, with late C19 additions. Extensive restoration and conversion 1989-90, with additions including conference hall to central quadrangle. Yellow and red brick, with stucco front and gabled and hipped slate roofs. Classical Revival style. EXTERIOR: eaves cornice, coped parapet, pedimented gables, various stacks. Windows are mainly glazing bar sashes. Main block with flanking wings, rear wings flanking central quadrangle, rear range including former theatre. 2 and 3 storeys, 19 x 15 bays. Main block, 3 storeys, 5 bays, has a giant Ionic portico with pediment. Central doorway with moulded Egyptian architrave, flanked by 2 sashes. Above, 5 sashes on each floor, those to the second floor being smaller. Flanking wings, 2 storeys, 5 bays, have regular fenestration on each floor. Projecting terminal blocks, 2 storeys, have 2 windows on each floor. Rear has regular fenestration and 2 semicircular projecting bays. Rear wings, 2 storeys, 10 bays, flanking the central quadrangle, have hipped 2 storey central projections and end pavilions. Former theatre, now Lawrence Hall, forming the north side of the quadrangle, 2 storeys, 5 bays, has a central gabled dormer on each side, and 5 gablet ventilators. Round arched cross casement in north gable. INTERIOR: main block has central stairwell with reeded cornices and a panelled elliptical arch on each floor. Stone cantilever open well staircase with wrought-iron balustrade. Neustadt room has reeded fireplace and basket grate. On each floor, ranges of single-patient cells, many of them remodelled. Lawrence Hall, formerly the theatre, has an arch braced roof with panelled ceiling, and an elliptical proscenium arch flanked by pedimented doorcases. At the rear, a wooden fire surround with cornice and overmantel. HISTORY: the Lawn is important in the treatment of the mentally ill because Edward Parker Charlesworth and Robert Gardner Hill here pioneered the treatment of patients without physical restraint, between c1831 and 1838. This principle was adopted at the influential Hanwell Asylum from 1839. (Buildings of England : Lincolnshire: Pevsner N: Lincolnshire:

London: 1989-: 511; Kelsall F: Report on listable quality of the building; Harwood E: Dissertation on mental hospitals).

Listing NGR: SK9728371873