Knockbracken Clinic, Knockbracken Healthcare Park, Saintfield Road, Belfast, County Down, BT8 8BH

Knockbracken Clinic, Knockbracken Healthcare Park, Saintfield Road, Belfast

A complex former infirmary block built around 1910 to designs by Tulloch & Watt, with George Thomas Hine acting as consultant architect, as part of the Purdysburn Villa Colony hospital complex. The building occupies an elevated site on the extensive Knockbracken Healthcare Park (formerly Purdysburn Villa Colony) south of Belfast in the Borough of Castlereagh. A north block was added around 1915. The building is listed at Grade B2 and forms part of a wider group of listed structures across the approximately 275-acre Knockbracken Healthcare Park site.

Overview and Plan Form

The building has a highly complex symmetrical plan, resembling a broad truncated arrow and arranged around two courtyards bisected by a central link section on an irregular U-plan. It consists of two parallel blocks: the original south front block and the later north block added around 1915. The south front block comprises a three-storey main central section flanked by single-storey wings, each terminating with four panopticon-style radial arms. The main arms extend from a flat-roofed hexagonal lantern; the innermost arm links to the north extension at an angle of approximately 60°. Throughout, roofs are hipped natural slate with angled ridge tiles and red brick chimneystacks with stone caps, and sheeted overhanging eaves supporting ogee cast iron rainwater goods. Walling is stretcher-bonded brick over a chamfered plinth, with moulded stone string courses at sill level and above window-head level at each floor. Windows throughout have been replaced with uPVC.

Central Block

The central block is three storeys, rectangular on plan, with projecting gabled end bays and a full-height return to the rear. It is abutted by a single- and two-storey service block and by identical east and west dormitory wings to either side. Plain reveals have ashlar sandstone voussoirs and a keyblock over each window opening; the tripartite second-floor windows to the outer bays have Serliana-type dressings.

The principal elevation faces south and is symmetrically arranged about a central ashlar sandstone doorcase containing a round-headed door opening set within a simple broken-bed pediment, flanked by sidelights with a simple transom. The entrance is a double-leaf timber multi-panelled door, accessed by four diminishing platform steps. The central section is four windows wide to the upper floors, with the second-floor windows set back within a gallery that was formerly open and supported on stone columns; this has since been enclosed within a glazed timber screen. The projecting bays to either side have two-storey canted bays topped by a parapet and surmounted by a Serliana-style window. The side elevations are blank. The rear elevation is abutted by a pair of full-height returns flanking a two-storey stairwell outshot, and is plainly detailed with irregular fenestration.

Dormitory Wings

The east and west dormitory wings are identical and are described here using the east wing as the reference. Each is arranged on a panopticon plan, with three wards radiating from a central polygonal hub lit from above by a replacement lantern. Each wing connects to the central block by a link block and to the north block by an extended north arm.

Roofs, walling, and window details match those of the central block, though there are no string courses to the wings; windows have plain reveals and projecting sandstone sills. The south elevation has a full-height gabled projecting bay to the inner portion, flanking the central block, and is fronted by a single-storey canted bay with a multi-paned roundel over, lit by closely spaced windows. The link block is flat-roofed with a parapet and has a door accessed by four stone steps, flanked by a window.

The ward ranges present a canted frontage at the south, angled from a replacement lantern dating from around 1980, set on a plinth of green tiles and otherwise fully glazed with a flat roof pierced by circular lights. The entire south front was formerly fronted by an open verandah supported on cast iron columns; this was infilled around 1980 with concrete brick and curtain glazing, though the verandah structure remains intact beneath. The south-east ward terminates with a pair of octagonal pavilions having glazed conical lanterns with decorative finials, partially concealed by a parapet with a stone string course and coping. Each pavilion tower is lit by two windows and has a small box-like brick extension of around 1980 of no architectural interest; the exposed gable apex has a roundel. All remaining radial elevations are plainly detailed and lit by a series of equally spaced windows.

North Block

The north block also comprises three sections: a three-storey central block with attic, symmetrically arranged about a segmental-headed carriage arch leading through to the central courtyard, flanked by long two-storey wings to east and west. The central section has a hipped natural slate roof with a small three-light dormer to the centre of the main pitch. Walling is red brick in stretcher bond. Windows are plainly detailed as elsewhere, in a 6/6 configuration, with cambered heads.

The north façade is divided into five sections. The central section is two windows wide over the carriage arch and is flanked by gabled sections of equal width, each embellished with Dutch-style gables and having paired upper-floor windows contained within full-height recesses of brown brick over ground-floor canted bays, with herringbone brick at the head of each recess. The outer bays are each one window wide at each floor. The side elevations are identical; each is abutted by its respective wing, set back at the extreme south end. A flat-roofed porch to each side contains a door set in a round-headed recess detailed with brown brick to match the main façade, surmounted by a replacement uPVC conservatory accessed from the first floor. Each porch is lit by a window to each cheek; there is otherwise a single window to the ground floor and a diminutive window to the second floor. Each side wing is plainly detailed throughout, enlivened only by a central full-height canted bay with large windows at mid-level. Rear elevations are plainly detailed and accessed by twin timber doors to the central block, set in recessed porches with terrazzo flooring.

Service Block

The service block comprises a double-height L-shaped kitchen abutted by a two-storey ancillary block and boiler house. All elements are plainly detailed, with roundel windows to the kitchen gables.

Interior

Although the building is now divided into self-contained units that no longer reflect original functions, the floor plans generally remain intact with ample evidence of former use in places. The panoptic centres of the dormitory wings are of special interest, retaining original tiling, marble sills, and curved doors. Unfortunately the original lanterns have been replaced. The panoptic centres were originally laid out as winter gardens.

Setting and Courtyard

The courtyard is divided into two sections reflecting the historical gender segregation between wings, separated by the service block. Each courtyard is grassed and bisected by a cross-shaped covered walkway comprising a raised and railed concrete path beneath a pitched slated canopy supported on cast iron columns. The Knockbracken Clinic occupies an elevated site within the wider complex, surrounded by grassed banks, and commands views of the Lagan Valley and the Antrim Hills.

Historical Background

The Purdysburn estate was purchased in 1894 by Belfast Corporation for £29,500, following the deaths of Narcissus and Emily Batt, the former owners, and the house was adapted for use as a lunatic asylum by architects Jackson and Tilley after they won a competition in 1897. The initial purchase was 295 acres; in 1902 a further 88 acres — the site of the present buildings — was acquired from Mr John Morrow. Further purchases of adjoining land in 1904, 1911, 1917, and 1919 brought the total owned by the Corporation to 554 acres, of which 65 acres were allocated to an Infectious Diseases Hospital.

In 1900 the Management Committee of the Lunatic Asylum, on the advice of Medical Superintendent William Graham MD, decided to build a new asylum on the Villa Colony principle, which would allow patients to be accommodated in homely villas and classified according to mental and physical condition. The architects were Graeme Watt & Tulloch of Belfast, who had been architects to the villa colony since its inception in 1902. As work progressed, the committee drew on the expertise of George Thomas Hine, Consulting Architect to the English Lunacy Commissioners.

A dwelling already on the site, known as Glenavon, was adapted for 30 patients, and two further villas were built in 1902–3 for chronic cases, with two more completed in 1906. In 1907 the Asylum Committee authorised plans for four more villas, two churches, a recreation hall, and the present hospital block. Work commenced in 1908, using lunatic labour to carry out considerable alterations to the contour of the site. The cost was estimated at £81,000 and the contractors were H & J Martin and Messrs Robert Corry Ltd.

The infirmary block was added to the site in 1909 and is first shown on the fourth edition Ordnance Survey map of 1920–1. It was originally intended for sick and infirm cases and contained 100 beds — 50 male and 50 female — together with Medical Officers', Matron's and Nurses' apartments, a laboratory, and dental rooms. A 1929 description called it "a very beautiful one-storey pavilion…placed on an elevation which affords a commanding view of the Lagan Valley and the Antrim Hills. The Dayrooms and Dormitories are very commodious with high-domed ceilings. Open-air verandahs communicate with the dormitories to which the patients in bed can be removed when weather conditions are favourable. The Building is cross-lighted and centrally-heated [and] is considered one of the finest yet erected anywhere for the clinical treatment of the mentally ill." An extension was added to the rear of the block in 1917 to designs by Nicholas Fitzsimons, providing accommodation for a further 50 patients. Additions continued to be made to the asylum over subsequent years, with further buildings planned in 1924–5, 1933–6, and 1938–9, all designed by Messrs Tulloch and Fitzsimons. By 1937 there were 17 villas accommodating 1,320 patients, together with the hospital for 146 and a sanatorium for 22 patients.

Architect George Thomas Hine

George Thomas Hine considered asylum architecture to be "almost a distinct profession in itself." In 1887 he won the competition for an enormous London County Council asylum in Essex at Claybury, which was greatly praised at the time; its compact arrow plan became the model for asylum design and launched Hine's career as one of the most successful asylum architects of his era. He held the post of Consulting Architect to the Commissioners in Lunacy from 1897 and designed four major LCC asylums housing over 200 patients each, as well as several new county asylums and additions to many others, most of his early designs being based on the Claybury model. His designs after 1902, in particular Long Grove in Epsom (1903–7) and Purdysburn (1907–13), often feature dispersed units. Purdysburn is one of the only mental illness facilities to make use of the colony design. The First World War marked the beginning of a decline in large asylum building programmes in the United Kingdom.

Architectural and Historical Significance

The building's plan form reflects the leading edge of a specialist form of design facilitating the humane treatment and care of the mentally ill in surroundings designed for that purpose. Although large in scale, the building avoids institutional character. Architecturally, it harks back to the Benthamite panopticon of the late 18th century, with radial wards that could be viewed from a single central point. Much original fabric remains intact.

Belfast's earlier asylum, built on the site now occupied by the Royal Victoria Hospital, had been constructed in 1829 and closed in 1917, being demolished in the 1920s. It was of a prison-like design comprising numerous single cells with small, heavily barred windows and high surrounding walls intended to protect the public from the inmates. The asylum was enlarged in 1860 but had accommodation for only 346 patients; those who could not be accommodated were sent to workhouses, or if dangerous, to gaol. Classification of mental disorders was simplistic, covering the four categories of lunatics (curable and incurable), epileptics, and idiots. It was not until 1895 that epileptics began to be treated in infirmaries rather than in asylums.

In the 1990s the management and clinicians decided to rename Purdysburn in order to dispel some of the negative associations attached to the name; the site is now known as Knockbracken Healthcare Park and is shared with around thirty voluntary organisations working in the healthcare field. The headquarters of the Belfast Trust is also located on the site. Patient numbers peaked at over 1,800 in the mid-1950s and now stand at around 300, largely due to changes in mental health provision and an increased emphasis on treating people within the community.

The Knockbracken Clinic is the main building within the 275-acre Knockbracken Healthcare Park complex. Together with the associated buildings on the site, it forms an architectural group of great merit of international significance within the context of mental health, representing a late 19th-century emphasis on treatment assisted through positive environmental conditions and appropriate design. Having employed many people throughout the district for over a century, and given its history of unbroken use, the building is of considerable social interest. The Knockbracken Healthcare Park is one of five large hospital complexes listed in Northern Ireland and one of two listed 20th-century hospitals, the second being Belvoir Park Hospital, located within Castlereagh a short distance to the north.