Administrative, Ward And Service Ranges To Stone House Hospital, Built As The City Of London Asylum

This complex comprises the main administrative and ward buildings of the former City of London pauper lunatic asylum, later Stone House Hospital. The core T-shaped block dates from 1866, with quadrant corridors linking to the former laundry and workshop blocks. Extensions followed in 1887-9, including an enlarged female infirmary of about 1902 to the south-east. The original design and layout were by J B Bunning, the City of London Surveyor who also designed Holloway Prison. The early 20th-century additions were by Andrew Murray FRIBA, then serving as City Surveyor. The complex is mainly two storeys, with a three-storey central block.

Materials and Style

The buildings are constructed of yellow brick with white brick dressings, and red brick for the later 19th-century extensions, in the Tudorbethan style favoured for Victorian institutions. Windows are mainly timber sashes. The roofs are slate, mostly hipped with some gables. Stock brick chimneys are corbelled and feature paired shafts.

Layout

The central administration block runs north-south, flanked by long wings punctuated with slightly projecting central sections and terminating in infirmary blocks. The female infirmary extends to the south-east. Quadrant corridors on the north side link with the former workshops and superintendent's house to the east, and the laundry and other service ranges to the west. An airing shed stands within the landscaped grounds to the south. The separately listed chapel lies due north of the site.

North Elevation

The advanced administration block facing north has a pair of two-storey canted bays with sash windows, stone dressings, and pediments flanking the central entrance. The entrance has a hood-moulded transom over a shallow pointed-arch door. Above this is a first-floor sash window, then a pediment containing a clock set in stone above the Corporation arms, added around 1900. Set back from this is a tall belfry.

South Elevation

The long garden front facing south has a taller central section with a prominent hall flanked by three-storey wings of two bays, then lower two-storey wings. The main block has a slightly advanced central gable and a first-floor wide perpendicular traceried window under a stone quatrefoil. At ground floor is a square window with hood mould and two-tiered mullioned and transomed casements. Single bays to each side and the returns have similar windows. The three-storey wings have mullioned windows with drip mouldings. The lower wings have central and end advanced sections with canted bay windows as on the north front. The far east end has a tall flèche with a copper spire, and a mid-20th-century single-storey extension. Beyond this is a single-storey range with sash windows set in stone quoined surrounds. Prominent chimneys, some with paired and corbelled stacks, define the hipped and gabled roofline.

Female Infirmary

Extending to the west end is the female infirmary of about 1900. This is single storey with hipped tiled roofs, six-pane over single-pane sashes with stone chamfered lintels and sills, and similar chimneys, some with stone shoulders to the chimney breast. There is a wide octagonal belfry with an acute spire and upper-stage lancets. Some 20th-century window replacement and low later-20th-century extensions are not of special interest, along with some 1923 extensions to the west.

Ventilation Shaft

Visible from both sides is the landmark ventilation shaft, containing a smoke shaft as well as extraction shafts. This feature is brick with stone dressings to arrow-slits and has a corbelled and battlemented head.

Laundry Ranges

Attached by a partly glazed quadrant link to the north-west are a series of laundry ranges with stone-coped gables that have a ball finial and stone-dressed oculus. Behind these run raised glazed ridge lanterns. Doors and windows have stone quoined surrounds as on the main block. There are numerous small multi-pane sash windows on the two-storey elevation and similar corbelled paired chimneys and stone dressings to gables. A 1920s laundry range is also present.

North-Eastern Ranges

Attached by a quadrant link to the north-east is a two-storey range with typical chimneys, windows, and canted bays all with stone dressings, and the former bakery with a tall plain brick chimney and stone pointed archway flanked by brick piers leading to the yard. There have been numerous later-20th-century alterations to windows here and to the adjoining building. Through here is access to the north side of the ward range where decorative details survive in the stone window sills and flat yellow brick arches, the paired and corbelled chimneys, and the stone-coped gables with stone dressings. There are numerous sash windows, some very tall and narrow with multiple small panes and thick mullions. The quadrant links have pitched tile roofs and slender cast-iron columns supporting the open-air walkways with brick wall rear. The superintendent's house was extended around 1912 and later in the 20th century, though it retains the original similar detailing and stone-framed bay windows.

Principal Interiors

The main block facing south contains the most impressive interiors. At ground floor is the dining room with a minstrel gallery on deep brackets. The ceiling has moulded beams and there are full-height stacked windows with shallow pointed arches to the south and both returns. Similar blind openings are within the room, over doors and housing two commemorative panels. To the east, a marble panel with red surround records that the City of London Mental Hospital was restored and enlarged 1897-1900 and lists the names of the committee. That to the west is from the first period of building, including the names of those on the committee 1862-66, set within a moulded surround. The gallery balustrade has pointed-arch openings. Behind this is a kitchen, much modernised, but with corbels at the base of the roof structure exposed.

The first floor contains the former chapel, later an entertainment room. This has a medieval hall atmosphere with a grand hammerbeam roof structure springing from moulded corbels and with similar timber pendants. The room includes a deep raised stage that abuts the ventilation shaft, and a smaller stage with a shallow Tudor-arch opening. This held the screen for film projection, and mid-20th-century film projection equipment survives in a small upper room. There are numerous blind and real windows set within pointed-arched frames.

The administration block facing north contains first-floor rooms with simple 19th-century marble fireplaces, some with Corporation crests, a linen closet, and a stick baluster stair leading from the ground-floor corridor, which has been much modernised. The interiors of the wards have been much modernised, but some south-facing day rooms are readable, as well as a few private rooms. The quadrant corridors are still readable internally. There are some partitions and doors with shallow pointed-arch motifs, some with margin lights, and elliptical arches into the south-facing canted bay windows. The room at the base of the ventilation shaft has a kingpost timber roof structure; the interior of the brick-lined shaft has a metal ladder stair. No apparent survival of the Turkish baths in the basement.

Airing Shed

Within the grounds to the south, mid-way along the west wing of the main block, is an airing shed aligned north-south. Along with mature trees, this is the key surviving element of the original designed landscape. It somewhat resembles a cartshed, but closer inspection reveals that both sides are open, providing separate bench accommodation on either side of a boarded partition. It has a hipped tiled roof with low overhanging eaves on the two long sides, covering the seating areas and supported by timber posts with raking struts. The short ends have waney-edge weatherboarding below the hip.

Historical Context

The passing of the Lunatic Asylums Act in 1853 led the Corporation of London to consider the location and design of further accommodation for the unstable and mentally ill elements of its populace. James Bunning, Surveyor to the City of London and designer of Holloway Prison, was responsible for the design, with the earliest drawings dating from 1859. The asylum was formally opened on 16th April 1866, accommodating 250 patients. The Builder commented on the site's commanding view of the surrounding country and the spacious grounds. The institution adopted the favoured Tudorbethan style of the period and was laid out on the corridor principle rather than the competing pavilion principle. Since asylums were always separated by sex in this period, the male wing was to the east and the female wing to the west. Behind were the laundry and workshop blocks, and a 107-acre Stone House Farm was acquired in 1887.

Significant alterations took place during a period of modernisation and extension in 1897-1903. Andrew Murray FRIBA, the City's surveyor in this period, designed the new chapel and converted the former chapel on the upper floor of the main block into a theatre, expanded the male infirmary, considerably enlarged the female infirmary, and rebuilt the laundry and boiler house as well as the mortuary. The mortuary has a cross plan and timber sash windows, some with cusped heads. An E-plan two-storey Nurses Home was added to the south-west of the site in 1909, similarly detailed to the rest of the hospital but more domestic in character. A new female hospital was built in 1923 to the designs of Sydney Perks, Surveyor to the City at that time.

The site was renamed the City of London Mental Hospital in 1924 and passed to the National Health Service in 1946.

Significance

This complex is impressive for the survival of both the 1866 range by J B Bunning and the 1897-1901 extensions, each phase designed by the City of London Surveyor of the time. The overall style is an imposing Tudorbethan executed with attractive brickwork, corbelled chimneys, stone dressings, and particularly grand north and south fronts offset by the battlemented ventilation tower. The wards and service ranges are less decorated but still well constructed and form an important part of this historically significant complex, built for the City of London in well-landscaped grounds on high land outside the capital. The flint and stone chapel is listed separately at Grade II, and the whole complex forms a good group.