Medical Super Intendents House, 133 Balornock Road, Glasgow, Glasgow, Glasgow

Description

Thomson and Sandilands, 1900'1904. 2-storey and attic, 3-bay gabled, half-timbered, Arts and Crafts villa, situated at prominent junction within the hospital site. Red brick to ground with cream harl to upper storey. Some mullioned and transomed windows. Elevation to south with gabled outer bays linked at ground by slated verandah. There is a later single-storey wing to the north.

Variety of glazing patterns: some 4-over plate glass timber sash and case windows; some small pane timber casement windows. Grey slated roof with a complex of piended gables and one dormer breaking wallhead.

The interior was seen in 2013. There are some fine original features extant including a timber dog-leg stair with decorative timber balusters and a decorative timber fire surround with overmantel.

Statement of Interest

The former Medical Superintendent's house at Stobhill hospital was built between 1900 and 1904 and is a key building within this rare surviving Poor Law complex. Designed by the successful Glasgow architects' firm of Thomson and Sandilands, it is in the contemporary Arts and Crafts style with a number of distinctive external features. The building also retains some fine interior timber decorative panelling. The red brick to the ground floor and the cream harl to the upper floor was a standard decorative treatment for houses of this date (although brick is a less common building material in Scotland), but here it has particular emphasis as it contrasts with the more institutional red brick of all the other original buildings, highlighting the residential nature of this building.

The Arts and Crafts movement began around 1880 in England with the ideas of William Morris and John Ruskin and encompassed all aspects of design, including furniture, as well as architecture and interior decoration. The philosophy was based around using natural materials for housing and having a more traditional approach to design. This house uses a number of features which were typical of the movement including the asymmetry of the entrance elevation, the half-timbering of the upper storey, the recessed porch and the variety of gables and window designs. This amount and variety of external detailing is unusual in an institutional residence, particularly as it extends to all the elevations. The property sits close to the centre of the site and can be seen from all aspects and the fact that all the elevations have some degree of decoration illustrates the high quality of the design.

The building was converted to a nurses' home in 1931 by the Master of Works and City Engineer in Glasgow, Thomas Somers.

Stobhill Hospital was built as a Poor Law hospital and is one of only a handful of remaining large complexes built specifically to care for the poor. As such, it gives some insight into the provision of care given to people who could not afford medical care and who often had associated psychiatric problems. It accommodated young children, older married couples and the poor with medical or psychiatric disorders. Two other smaller poorhouses were built in Glasgow at the same time, but these no longer survive. When built, the site was composed of a number of wards and associated buildings, some of which have either been demolished or altered so significantly that their original individual integrity has been lost.

The hospital was requisitioned by the military during the First World War, when the patients were sent to other hospitals. After 1948, it became part of the NHS. New buildings were built on the site in the latter part of the 20th century and the site continues as a hospital.

Provision to care for the poor in Scotland has varied over the centuries and in the 18th and early 19th century it largely fell to churches to provide some sort of care in their parishes. This could vary tremendously from parish to parish and was often monetary and did not involve providing accommodation. After the Poor Law (Scotland) Act in 1845 was passed, a Supervisory Board was set up in Edinburgh which oversaw relief throughout the country. A model plan was drawn up for poorhouses and many smaller ones were built between the period of 1849 and 1870 following this plan. In the larger towns and cities, more provision was required and bigger complexes were built. These were often overcrowded and by the end of the 19th century, there was increasing concern that medical care for the poor should be provided in one institution and there should be separate wards to accommodate this. Of the large institutions built during the latter part of the 19th and early 20th century only five survive in 2014.

The architectural practice of John Thomson and Robert Douglas Sandilands ran from 1886-1914. Based in Glasgow, it was very a successful practice, which gained most of its work from competition designs, although it also had some private clients. Its works include the Beaux Arts style Govan Town Hall, Gartloch Asylum, and the former offices and shops of the Glasgow City Improvement Trust at the Trongate in Glasgow.

Previous statutory address '133 Balornock Road, Stobhill Hospital, Medical Superintendent's house including Staff Dining Room'.

Statutory address and listed building record updated, 2014.

External Links

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