Former Medical Superintendant'S House At Rubery Hill Hospital

The former Medical Superintendant's House at Rubery Hill Hospital, dated 1879, was designed by Martin and Chamberlain of Birmingham for the Borough of Birmingham's Lunatic Asylums Committee of Visitors. This building is made of red brick with ashlar and terracotta dressings. It features sidewall and ridge stacks with some moulded brickwork and clay pots, barge-boarded gables, and a plain tiled roof with crested clay ridges.

The structure has an irregular plan with an 'L' shaped front range at right angles to a triple-gabled rear elevation. The south elevation consists of two storeys above a basement and has three bays, with an 'L' shaped porch in the middle bay that provides access to a flight of steps leading to a raised entrance. The porch has a gabled timber superstructure supported by battered ashlar and brick piers, featuring a pointed entry arch. To the side of the stepped entry, there is a 6-light clerestorey beneath a plain tiled lean-to roof with a small glazed dormer. Above the porch gable, there is a projecting breast of a sidewall chimney.

To the west, there is a 4 over 4 pane ground floor sash window, and above the lean-to roof of the centre bay, there are coupled 6-pane lights. The advanced gabled bay to the east has coupled sash windows on the ground floor above a blind basement, with the window frames having 12 panes in the upper sash and 2 in the lower. The first floor features a canted oriel supported by moulded timber brackets, with sashes that match those on the ground floor. A fish-scale tiled apron to the gable forms the roof of the oriel, which is adorned with a decorative cambered collar and yoke at the gable apex.

Further to the east, there are steeple-pitched lean-to links leading to a 5 bay corridor with an entrance return at the east end. The triple-gabled north elevation has a lean-to glazed porch at the centre above coupled stair windows. The west elevation includes a gabled south bay with a canted ashlar bay window and coupled sashes above. The jettied apex of the decorative gable incorporates timber nogging and ornamental terracotta.

Inside, the building retains many original features, including panelled doors, a turned baluster staircase, a plaster cornice, and an encaustic-tiled entrance hall floor.