Main building at St John's Hospital

Main building at St John's Hospital

The former Lincolnshire Pauper Lunatic Asylum, later St John's Hospital, was built between 1850 and 1852 with extensive additions and alterations carried out in 1857–58, 1869, 1880–82, 1902, 1914–16, 1928–32 and 1939. The building occupies an elevated position two miles from Lincoln.

The vast hospital complex is constructed in the Italianate style using local blue stone with Mansfield stone dressings, slate, hipped roofs and numerous stone chimney stacks, some of which have been reduced in height. The additions made in 1857–58, 1880–82 and 1902 are architecturally consistent with the original building.

The complex is dominated by the original three-storey superintendant's house forming the main central block of the southern wing, and the administration block dating from 1900, which currently forms the north entrance to the former hospital. Both main blocks are three-storey and are flanked by two-storey links with extensive H-plan wings to either side.

The main southern façade is dominated by the former superintendant's house. It features a broad central projecting gable and projecting side wings, each topped by a pediment. The central doorway is recessed within a projecting Doric porch with half-columns, entablature and balustrade. The ground floor fenestration consists of a sequence of single round-headed glazing bar sashes with pairs of similar sashes and then three further sashes. The first floor displays a central tripartite glazing bar sash above the porch, flanked by single sashes all with bracketed hoods, followed by two similar windows and then three further sashes, all with hoods. The third floor shows comparable fenestration but with smaller glazing bar sashes. Central Doric pilasters rise through the upper floors of the three main projecting bays. An octagonal ashlar cupola with round arches, topped by a dome and finial, is positioned centrally within the main projecting gable.

The two-storey wings extending east and west feature round-headed glazing bar sashes with keystones on the lower storey and plain glazing bar sashes above, all with plain ashlar surrounds. The junctions between the east and west wings and the north and south aligned wings are marked by tall square ventilator towers with roll-moulded bases. Each face of these towers displays three round-headed arches, topped by a pyramidal roof and finial. The east and west wings have square pavilions at their corners and round-ended central pavilions. Some twentieth-century alterations are evident in the side wings, but the façades survive substantially intact.

The north entrance front is also three-storey with a slightly projecting centre and projecting side wings. A single-storey entrance porch, with balustrade, projects forward and contains a central doorway with Doric columns and pediment. Either side are pairs of plain sashes, flanked by single stone cantered bay windows with balustrades and three plain sashes. The first floor displays a central pair of sashes flanked by pairs of sashes and then another pair; the floor above has similar fenestration but with smaller sashes. The central projecting bay is topped by a pediment incorporating an integral clock, behind which stands an octagonal cupola with a bell-canted lead roof.

The interior retains an original cantilevered stone staircase behind the main entrance of the south wing, though most of the cast-iron balustrade has been removed, leaving only the bottom newels. The stairwell is enriched by niches with shell canopies. The principal rooms, including the medical superintendant's office, retain features such as shutters, skirting boards and occasionally glazing, but have lost all of their fireplaces.

The patient accommodation originally followed the standard corridor or gallery plan of the period, with rows of single cells, day and dining rooms, and small dormitories accommodating between 3 and 10 patients opening off a gallery or day room. This layout was adopted for the 17 new asylums that opened in the eight years following the Lunacy Act of 1845. The original layout of the asylum remains very clear, with the pattern of cells, dormitories, galleries and dayrooms surviving intact, though much of the glazing has been replaced. A notable and innovative feature of this phase is the honeycomb fireproof vaulting, which survives in most areas of the building.

The phase dating from 1852 to 1900 survives intact and appears to have comprised dormitories rather than cells, probably to assist supervision of patients such as epileptics or suicide cases. The original building had not provided dormitories of this size. Some original cast-iron glazing survives in blocked windows on the end blocks; elsewhere windows have been replaced by plate-glass sashes. Internal features rarely survive in these areas. The 1882 ranges survive with the same type of fireproof vaults as the original building.

The building incorporates several interesting features. A corridor of communication ran along the back of the main south wing, enabling staff to pass from one end of the asylum to the other without entering the patients' galleries. The original corridor has been partly demolished; what survives is thought to have been partially rebuilt. The eastern end displays an arch-braced, shallow-pitched cast-iron roof with decorative painted coats of arms at the apex of each roof truss. The rafter and ridge purlins are of timber and would have supported a glazed ridge. The western end is believed to be the later, rebuilt element, featuring different, more functional steel roof trusses without the decorative detail.

The Lincolnshire asylum is among the first, alongside Colney Hatch and Derby, to have included a recreation hall. The original hall was superseded by a larger hall in 1902, comprising seven bays in addition to the stage at its west end. The hall is open to the roof, which features timber hammer-beam trusses and retains ventilation cowls on the ridge. It could be entered through four doorways in the north and south walls and one pair of double doors at the east end. The proscenium arch has a segmental head, and the back of the stage is lit by a tripartite window containing Art Nouveau glazing. A twentieth-century brick-built projection room has been added to the eastern end of the hall, but retains no projection equipment. A fragment of the kitchen, possibly a scullery area, survives, together with the servery on the north side of the recreation hall.

Most of the additions from the 1920s and 1930s have been demolished, with the exception of the water tower and the refurbished nurses' home.