Administration Block at St Luke's Hospital, Muswell Hill, London

Description

800/0/10121 WOODSIDE AVENUE
11-MAY-09 Muswell Hill
Administration block at St Luke's Hosp
ital

II
Administration block of psychiatric hospital, built 1928-30; designed by TA Pole FRIBA; built of red brick with stone dressings; hipped tile roof.

PLAN: The building is rectangular, two-storey, of symmetrical plan with eleven bays to the main elevations, and three to each side. The central three-bay section projects forward slightly.

EXTERIOR: The main, south, elevation has four sash windows with flat arches of gauged bricks to ground and first floors either side of the slightly projecting central section. Immediately above the arches to the first floor windows is a cornice with dentil decoration. The central section is flanked by stone pilasters and has three windows with stone surrounds to the first floor, the central arched window rising through the base of a broken pediment. Above the window to either side of the keystone is a floral swagged decoration. At ground floor level is a portico with six Tuscan order columns; the main entrance is through glazed double doors under a fanlight. Placed in the centre of the roof on its apex is a square cupola containing a clock and at each end of the south slope of the roof are tall square brick chimneys with a third rectangular chimney placed to the east of the cupola on the north slope. All have stone dressings.

The windows to the north elevation are similar plain sashes under flat arches, with an arched window at mezzanine level to the west of centre; this lights the stairwell. Adjoining the centrally placed entrance is a tile-roofed, covered walkway linking the administration block to the C19 houses to either side and to the treatment blocks. These are arranged in a semi-hexagon around gardens. Neither these nor the covered walkway are included in the listing. Both side elevations contain entrances flanked by sash windows, with three windows over; the west elevation has a double door entrance recessed under an open porch with round gauged brick arch. The windows are more closely grouped, the outer windows of eight rather then twelve panes.

INTERIOR: Corridors radiate from the centre of the ground floor under arches rising from pilasters with moulded capitals. A central cross-passage connects the front and back doors, while the arches to the corridors on either side have been filled in and fitted with fire doors. There are rooms arranged on either side of the corridors; all joinery survives intact, including moulded architraves, six-panelled doors, dado and picture rails, cornices and fireplace surrounds, although the fireplaces are boarded over. The stairwell is off the west corridor. Plain cast-iron stick balusters with wooden handrail lead down to the basement rooms (used as storage), while the balusters to the first floor are of decorative wrought ironwork.

The plan of the first floor is essentially the same as that of the ground, although the arrangement of rooms at the west end is more complex. A large opening has been cut into the north side of the east corridor to create a dispensary window. The central front section of the building is dominated by the large boardroom. This is a room made bright by the light from seven windows reflecting off the highly polished surfaces of floor boards, doors and the panelled surrounds of windows and fireplace. In the vaulted ceiling of the central section two decorated plaster ribs rise from paired consoles set below the cornice. To either side of this section are columns with Ionic capitals.

HISTORY: St Luke's Hospital, Woodside Avenue, Muswell Hill, built between 1928 and 1930, was founded by the St Luke's Charity as a successor to its Old Street asylum. The charity was established in 1750 to provide treatment for 'poor lunatics', and its first hospital opened in Windmill Hill, Upper Moorfields, in the same year. In 1782-87 the hospital moved to a new and much larger building designed for its purpose on Old Street. The sale of the Old Street site to the Bank of England in 1917 funded the purchase of three houses in Woodside Avenue, and in 1927 the architect TA Pole drew up plans which linked the existing houses by covered ways to treatment blocks to the north, and to a new administration block placed between two of the houses, Norton Lees (which became a nurses' home) and Roseneath. The aims of the new hospital were to treat a small number of 'educated people of slender means'; the ideas underlying the approach to treatment seem to follow the pioneering approach of Henry Maudsley, founder of the Maudsley Hospital, Camberwell, the administration block of which is listed at Grade II. Initially the hospital on Woodside Avenue housed 50 patients, and was enlarged to hold 100 beds in order to qualify as a teaching hospital in 1948, when it became part of the Middlesex Hospital's Department of Psychological Medicine. It is now part of the Camden and Islington Mental Health and Social Care Trust.

SOURCES:
Victoria County History Middlesex: Volume 6: Friern Barnet, Finchley, Hornsey with Highgate (1980), pp168-172.
French CN, The Story of St Luke's Hospital 1750-1948 (1951), pp149-153
Richardson, Harriet, English Hospitals 1660-1948 (1998), pp155-156

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION:
The administration block at St Lukes Hospital, Woodside Avenue, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* of special architectural interest for the quality of its well balanced neo-Georgian design which also displays attention to detail in the use of materials and decoration, and for the quality of design and craftsmanship of the interior, particularly the boardroom;
* good survival of interior fabric and features, including some impressive rooms;
* of special historical interest as representative of the distinguished and often pioneering role played by St Luke's Charity in the treatment of the mentally ill since the mid-C18.

Reasons for Listing

The administration block at St Lukes Hospital, Woodside Avenue, has been designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* of special architectural interest for the quality of its well balanced classical design which also displays attention to detail in the use of materials and decoration, and for the quality of design and craftsmanship of the interior, particularly the boardroom;
* good survival of interior fabric and features, including some impressive rooms;
* of special historical interest as representative of the distinguished and often pioneering role played by St Luke's Charity in the treatment of the mentally ill since the mid-C18, as reflected in its neo-Georgian design.

External Links

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