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

Piney Ridge is a two-storey, three-bay, semi-detached former house, now used as offices, built in 1936 to designs by the prominent Belfast architects Tulloch & Fitzsimons. It forms part of the Knockbracken Healthcare Park complex, situated to the north of the main complex, west of Saintfield Road in the borough of Castlereagh. The building was constructed by contractors Stewart and Partners as part of a phase of expansion that also included the 'Grahamholme' infirmary and reception block. It served as residential accommodation — a 'villa' — for patients at what was then the Purdysburn Villa Colony Asylum.

The building has an L-shaped plan with a box bay to the front, an additional bay to the north, and a projecting stairwell bay to the rear. A small rear return is abutted by an extension and a garage opening to the north. The hipped roof is covered in natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles and finials, and red-brick chimneystacks. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods and hoppers sit on projecting eaves with exposed rafter ends. The external walls are painted roughcast render on a smooth render plinth.

Windows throughout are original metal-framed casements with projecting masonry sills. The ground-floor windows feature art nouveau leaded and stained glass panels to their upper sections, and the stairwell window to the rear has six leaded and stained glass panels. The box bay to the front has a brick base and a slated roof.

The principal elevation faces west and has a central entrance with a projecting bay to the left. The entrance consists of an original round-headed, multi-paned metal door with a multi-paned transom and side-lights, set within a painted brick surround with springers, and approached by two masonry steps. Above the entrance is a two-light window at first-floor level. To the right of the entrance is a three-light window at first floor and a four-light window at ground floor. The projecting bay to the left has a six-light box bay at ground floor and a three-light window at first floor.

The north elevation has a window to the first floor and a two-light window at ground floor. The projecting bay at the left of this elevation has a five-light bow window at ground floor and a two-paned window at first floor. On its west face are two-light windows at both first- and ground-floor levels; the ground-floor window replaces an earlier doorway and has a brick surround with a keystone. The east face of this bay is blank.

The east (rear) elevation is three windows wide, with a two-light window to the centre and a modern fire-exit door to the left. At ground-floor level this elevation is four windows wide. The projecting stairwell bay at the far right contains the stairwell window and an oculus at ground-floor level. A small rear return at the far left, with a window to the first floor, is abutted by an extension, which is in turn abutted by a slated garage opening to the north. The south elevation abuts the adjoining semi-detached building.

Despite its change of use, the internal floor plan is largely unchanged and the architectural detailing is largely intact, retaining characteristic 1930s features.

The building is set to the north of the Knockbracken Healthcare Complex and is visible from Cairnshill Road to the northeast. It is accessed from the south via a narrow tarmacadamed road, is lawned on the remaining three sides, and is surrounded by mature trees, with tarmacadamed parking to all sides. The setting is largely unspoiled.

Piney Ridge and its semi-detached neighbour form an interesting and well-preserved pair, representative of the work of Tulloch & Fitzsimons. Their principal significance, however, lies in their group value as part of the wider Belfast Villa Colony Asylum complex.

The history of the broader site is substantial. Following the deaths of Narcissus and Emily Batt, the former owners of the Purdysburn estate, the house and demesne of 295 acres were sold in 1894 to Belfast Corporation for £29,500 for use as a lunatic asylum. The house was subsequently adapted by architects Jackson and Tilley, following a competition they won in 1897. An initial dwelling already on the site, '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 1902 a further 88 acres — the site of the present buildings — were acquired from Mr John Morrow, with additional land purchases in 1904, 1911, 1917 and 1919 bringing the total owned by the Corporation to 554 acres. Sixty-five acres were allocated for an Infectious Diseases Hospital, with the remainder retained as asylum property.

In 1900, the Management Committee of the Lunatic Asylum decided, on the advice of their Medical Superintendent Dr William Graham, to build a new asylum on the villa colony principle, which would allow patients to be housed in homely villas and classified according to mental and physical condition. Messrs Tulloch & Fitzsimons of Belfast were appointed architects. As work progressed, the committee brought in G. T. Hine, Consulting Architect to the English Lunacy Commissioners, as adviser. George Thomas Hine was a specialist in asylum architecture, describing it as almost a distinct profession in itself. In 1887 he had won the competition for the large London County Council asylum at Claybury in Essex, whose compact arrow plan became a model for asylum design. He designed four major LCC asylums housing over 200 patients each, as well as several county asylums and additions to many others. His later designs, particularly Long Grove in Epsom (1903–7) and Purdysburn (1907–13), moved towards dispersed units, with Purdysburn being one of the only mental illness facilities to make full use of the colony design. The supervising architects for the Purdysburn villa colony were Graeme Watt & Tulloch. Work commenced in 1908, using patient labour to carry out significant reshaping of the site's contours. The estimated cost was £81,000 and the contractors were H & J Martin and Messrs Robert Corry Ltd.

A Fever Hospital was also built on part of the estate to the west, to designs by Young and Mackenzie, opening in 1906. Originally known as the Purdysburn Fever Hospital and later as Belvoir Park Hospital, it was built under the terms of the City of Belfast Hospitals Act of 1903. It served as the main regional centre for oncology until its closure in 2006, when cancer treatment was transferred to the City Hospital.

By the time of the 1911 census, five villas were occupied by patients — four newly built, each housing around 55 patients, and one adapted from the earlier house on the site, occupied by 33 patients. A total of 171 patients were accommodated in the former Purdysburn House, meaning numbers on the site had almost tripled since the 1901 census, driven largely by a more than fourfold increase in female patients. Only male patients were accommodated in the villas, while Purdysburn House was reserved for women. In 1911 a tender from Messrs Robert Corry Ltd was accepted for two further villas at a cost of £9,790, and by 1913 these had been occupied by working patients transferred from Grosvenor Road Asylum. Additions continued over the following decades, with further building phases in 1924–5, 1933–6 and 1938–9, all designed by Tulloch & Fitzsimons. By 1937 there were 17 villas accommodating 1,320 patients, together with a hospital for 146 and a sanatorium for 22.

By 1929, Purdysburn mansion house and courtyard buildings together accommodated over 150 female patients. The hospital block for sick or infirm patients contained 100 beds, with Medical Officers', Matron's and Nurses' apartments, a laboratory and dental rooms. The villas were self-contained, home-like structures each with their own kitchen, designed for 55 patients, though numbers sometimes exceeded this. Within the grounds, patients were encouraged to work in a dairy and poultry farm; an orchard and walled gardens produced fruit, jam and vegetables — over eight tons of jam were made on site in 1929 alone.

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

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