C O N T E X T 1 1 9 : M A Y 2 0 1 1 25 Healthy environments Healthy environments Healthy environments environments Healthy Healthy environme environments Healthy environments WILL HOLBOROW Re-using historic hospitals Context reported on the re-use of historic hospitals in 20011. One of that article’s authors looks at how mental asylums, military and other hospitals have fared since. The era of publicly-funded asylum building began in the 1840s when the provision of county pauper asylums became compulsory. The number, size and sophistication of these purpose-built institutions increased up to the first world war. New mental hospitals continued to be provided in the inter-war period.2 They were generally built on secluded rural sites, and formed selfcontained communities. As well as the ward blocks and administration buildings, such hospitals were normally provided with their own chapel, burial ground, laundry facilities, boiler house, water tower and recreational facilities. In ‘Hospital landscapes and the country house estate’ (Context 118, March 2001), Sarah Rutherford examined the great Victorian hospital landscapes, with particular reference to Broadmoor. She aptly summarised these estates as ‘forgotten, misunderstood, largely destroyed’. It is a sad fact that many eminently re-usable hospital buildings have been demolished or allowed to stand empty for years after their closure. The reasons range from delays in the planning system to the sheer scale and the negative associations of old mental institutions. Even where hospital buildings have been re-used, their setting has often been compromised by new development. Against this generally gloomy scenario, there have been some successful attempts to bring these sites back to life as sustainable communities with a distinct sense of place based on their historic character. Following the establishment of NHS trusts and the adoption of the Care in the Community policy at the beginning of the 1990s 3, many hospital services were either merged, closed or relocated. In the years that followed, up to 150 large psychiatric hospitals became surplus to NHS requirements. SAVE Britain’s Heritage published a series of four reports between 1987 and 19974 which highlighted the scale of the challenge posed by these buildings and the urgent need for action in protecting them.The majority of the sites featured in these reports have now been either demolished or converted to residential use. The closure of large numbers of hospitals during the 1990s highlighted the need for better understanding and protection. This was greatly assisted by research carried out by the former Royal Commission on Historical Monuments in England (RCHME), which resulted in two publications at the end of the 1990s on the architectural history of hospitals 5 and workhouses 6. A significant number of hospitals were listed during this period. However, a survey of Essex hospitals dating from 1800-1948 7, published in 1999, concluded that ‘of the 25 surviving hospitals identified during the survey, the majority have no statutory protection and rarely does listing extend to the entire complex. Only three sites (12 per cent of the sample) are protected at an appropriate level’. In recent years increasing attention has been given to the protection of hospital landscapes. Fifteen of these are protected through inclusion on the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England. Local planning authorities have a lead role in protecting historic hospital sites through their planning policies and the use of their powers to designate conservation areas. Master planning has an important role to play in achieving the high-quality, sustainable development of former hospital sites. The Homes and Communities Agency has adopted characterisation as a technique for capturing the Park Prewett, Basingstoke, Hampshire, a former mental hospital.The density and style of new housing development contrast uneasily with the original buildings. (Photo: Alan Johnson) KnowleVillage, Fareham, Hampshire.The scale and materials of new development (foreground) are respectful of the retained historic buildings of this former mental hospital. (Photo: Alan Johnson)
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