1. Introduction

The original document by the Urban Design Team isn't available, but from English Heritage's replies, it would appear that several key facts in the proposal were incorrect, therefore the buildings lacked their significance and historic context. Reading English Heritage's site inspection and summary, it would appear some of the listing decisions hung on the inaccuracies introduced into the Urban Design Team's proposal.

This document is in two parts: in the first part, I've taken quotes from English Heritage's reply to the Urban Design Team, in which there are inaccuracies or differences of opinion. By doing this I hope to strengthen the building's case for listing.

In the second part, I've presented a longer, more formal, application as to why Cane Hill should be considered for listing. In this way, English Heritage can either take the first part as an appeal against their decision, or take the second part as a fresh proposal.

Simon Cornwell
16th April 2007
With thanks to Alex (Lillimouse) and Peter Cracknell

    

2. English Heritage's Reply To The Urban Design Team

However, Cane Hill is not an echelon plan asylum. The listing of High Royds should have no bearing on Cane Hill's status.

Proposals of the characterization of lunatic asylum design were initially by Sir Henry Burdett (1892) and expanded by George Thomas Hine (1901). This classification system isn't perfect, as many transitional designs feature elements of two or more types, or incomplete forms of others. But the categories of "Irregular/Conglomerate", "Corridor", "Corridor-Pavilion", "Oblique/Broad Arrow (Echelon)", "Compact Arrow (Echelon)" and "Colony" provide a broad framework in which asylums may be classified.

• There is no separation of wards and arterial corridors.
• Sequential wards arranged perpendicularly.
• No discernable pavilion wards

By the 1870s the corridor plan was becoming increasingly critiqued:

• The mixing of day rooms and main corridors was undesirable.
• The design scaled poorly.
• The Nightingale inspired pavilion ward was a better design.

This period (1870-1890) epitomized the pavilion plan asylum, which saw the construction of many novel and unique asylums. It led directly into the echelon plan era, but represented an important stepping stone in ideas between corridor and echelon.

Howell's novel design was probably inspired by the radial building design of workhouses and prisons (based on the Panopticon or "all seeing eye"). This hadn’t been used for hospital or asylum design for decades as it was deemed unsuitable: not only was the idea of being ‘observed’ unsavory, but there were practical issues with wards being too closely spaced where they joined the hub and suffering from want of light and air. In order to solve this spacing problem:

• Howell positioned the pavilion wards around a horseshoe shaped main corridor
• He staggered their placement so some were centrally connected and others connected at their tip
• He separated them by patient class (so the short, wide pavilion wards with large day rooms intermeshed with the long thin pavilion wards comprising mostly of single rooms).

The last point needs further clarification. In the 1870s, work started on shaping each pavilion ward for different classes of patient. With the introduction of epileptics to asylums in the 1870s, Howell designed an epileptic ward which found universal favor with asylum architects, the design used in all subsequent asylum designs. By the 1880s, the number of classes of patient had increased to eight; and the Cane Hill pavilion wards designed to cater for all these classes (including infirm, epileptic, suicidal, acute, quiet and working). No other asylum has catered for such a number of different classes of patient, still seen in the different shapes and sizes of each ward.

Hine (when the Consulting Architect for the Commissioners of Lunacy) cited the building as the most important of Howell's work although was critical that some of the wards were too close together; Burdett was disparaging; but the officers and staff who worked there regarded it as one of the best asylums hitherto erected.

In summary, Cane Hill has several unique characteristics:

• Pavilion wards arranged in a radial pattern around a split horseshoe shaped corridor.
• Pavilion wards staggered; some bisecting the corridor.
• Pavilion wards show the greatest number of patient class types of any UK asylum.
• It is considered the greatest achievement by C H Howell, County Surveyor of Bridges and Public Works for Surrey, and Consultant Architect to the Commissioners Of Lunacy.

Furthermore consideration should be given to the more general class of pavilion plan asylums of which Cane Hill is a member. It is a major player in asylum development and, in particular, the move toward the echelon plans (of which it is still distinctly different). Secondly, although many pavilion plan hospitals have survived to be listed, no pavilion plan asylum (being very different in purpose and therefore in implementation of design) has been cited for preservation. In fact aside from Hellesdon (which is much altered and rather less pavilion like than Cane Hill) there are no other pavilion plan asylums left aside from Cane Hill.

One of the criteria of successful listing is being an "exemplar of certain type": Cane Hill was the only radiating pavilion asylum constructed, and now by merit of demolition of other pavilion plan asylums, is now the only example left of a pavilion plan asylum.

The chapel at Cane Hill followed a much older practice of placing the building within the central core of the asylums. It stands in its own courtyard, attached to the main hospital by means of two lobbies and a single-storey corridor. The radiating ward blocks are not attached to the chapel, as stated incorrectly in the report. Its status as a self supporting structure was further reinforced by the Croydon's Planning Brief for Cane Hill of March 1998, which planned to retain both the Administration Block and Chapel as free standing structures.

    

3. Listing Applicaion: Cane Hill Hospital

3.1 Address Of The Building

Cane Hill Hospital

Coulsdon

Surrey

CR5 3YL

3.2 The Reasons Cane Hill May Merit Listing

See below.

3.3 Clear Original External And Interior Photographs

See below.

3.4 Owner

English Partnerships

10th Floor

2 Exchange Tower

Harbour Exchange Square

London

E14 9GS

Also see: http://www.englishpartnerships.co.uk/epaddresses.htm for a full list of regional addresses.

3.5 Location Map

Direct link using Multimap

3.6 The History Of The Buildings Of Cane Hill Hospital

In the 1860s and 1870s, the two county pauper lunatic asylums of Surrey were severely crowded. In 1875, architect Charles Henry Howell, County Surveyor of Bridges and Public Works for Surrey between 1860 and 1893, and more importantly, consultant architect to the Commissioners in Lunacy, recommended building a new asylum rather than expanding the other two. The county agreed in 1878 and work began on a new asylum at Cane Hill in Couldson, Surrey.

Due to the gross underestimation of the number of pauper lunatics, and the growth of the cities and towns, a new era of asylum planning and design begin, with designs catering for thousands of patients instead of hundreds. The existing preferred design, the corridor plan, had inherent design problems, and was difficult to enlarge. As the consulting architect for the Commissioners In Lunacy, and eager to solve the problem, Howell's design for Cane Hill was novel, experimental and contemporary: he used the relatively new Nightingale-inspired Pavilion ward, each shaped to cater for eight different classes of mental ill patient, and arranged them in a radial pattern.

The hospital was huge, originally designed on double the size of other contemporary designs (1124 patients - 644 female, 480 male). The female division had eight pavilion ward blocks, whilst in the male there were six. Howell's specialized ward design catered for infirm, epileptic, suicidal, acute, quiet and working. Although the carved stone block of the Administration Block states 1882, the hospital first received patients on December 4th 1883, and opened as "The Third Surrey County Pauper Lunatic Asylum".

In 1888, the hospital was transferred to the newly created London County Council, and was already overcrowded. Howell had foreseen this, leaving room for further extensions. The hospital was quickly then expanded using the same radial placing of wards; these showed a change in style and design and if not influenced by GT Hine (the incumbent Consultant Architect to the Commissioners in Lunacy), could have been designed by him.

In 1954, the hospital reached its peak of 2400 patients; then they started to decline, to 600 by 1985 and to less than 200 by April 1991. By late 1991, the hospital closed.

The whole site stands in the London green belt. It is not in the local list, nor is it in a conservation area.

3.7 The Reasons Cane Hill Merits Listing

Most of the buildings of Cane Hill are neither decorative nor picturesque. As a functional set of Victorian buildings, funded by the public purse, Cane Hill would've been judged along the guidelines of the Commissioners Of Lunacy, and conform to a certain austerity. That is not to say, all the buildings lack charm or attractiveness; the Administration Block, Chapel and water tower have all been cited as having strong local interest.

Cane Hill is the principle work of architect C H Howell, County Surveyor of Bridges and Public Works for Surrey, Consultant Architect to the Commissioners In Lunacy, as judged by his successor, GT Hine, the most prominent and successful of the asylum architects. Cane Hill's design, the so called 'radiating pavilion plan' was a novel, experimental and contemporary solution to the scaling of lunatic asylum design; and turns out to be unique, as subsequent architects adopted the echelon plan. No other building shares the staggered arrangement of pavilion wards around a central horseshoe shaped service corridor. The designs of the wards themselves are notable for catering for the greatest number of classes of mental patient; Cane Hill had eight different designs.

The buildings are testament to the emerging ideas in mental healthcare, mirroring the social changes of the period. Cane Hill was one of the first steps towards a new scale of asylum planning and design; the 'super' asylums in which thousands of patients could be treated and cared for.

During the hundreds of years it was open, the hospital was only indirectly associated with well-known characters or events. The most famous was a depletion of the hospital's Administration Block on the front cover of the American edition of David Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World album of 1972. The album deals in part with madness, and in particular, draws on Bowie's brother, who was a patient at the hospital.

The functional and barely decorated Water Tower is a constant reminder of the genre by which these buildings became known i.e. "water tower hospitals." Unlike some, it lacks embellishment and/or decoration, but has become a local landmark.

One of the criteria of listings is "exemplar of certain type", and Cane Hill is the only example of a radiating pavilion asylum. It is also the last of the pavilion plan asylums, the transitional group of buildings between the corridor plan asylums of the 1870s and previous, and the echelon plan asylums which would dominate asylum building for the next thirty years. All the other pavilion plan asylums are demolished.

3.7.1 Overview Of The Buildings

Cane Hill hospital is one large building complex (with an few smaller ancillary buildings), standing on the hill overlooking Coulsdon. It features bi-lateral symmetry, separating female and male wards, arranged in a radial pattern spaced along a horseshoe, shaped corridor between a central service block comprising of an administration block, chapel, main hall, kitchens, stores and laundry.

The radiating wards show differentiation in size, number of storeys and layout. This was to cater for different classes of patient.

Most of the asylum buildings are in the Queen Anne style, with the administration block and chapel being the most opulent (but only when compared to the other buildings, as asylums were austere by Victorian standards).

The administration block, chapel and wards are free standing structures connected by single storey corridors. The chapel, whilst standing in the centre of the complex, actually stands in its own small courtyard, connected to various single storey corridors by two lobbies.

The Chapel and Water Tower are both of gothic style.

The buildings are constructed from stock brick with polychrome brick dressings and slate roofs.

3.7.2 Administration Block

It's attractive Queen Anne design and facade was apparently inspired by the Brighton Pavilion. It comprises of a central recessed section of ten bays with domed cupola, clock faces (now missing) and weather vane. The three bays on either side have pedimented dormers and round-headed openings on the ground floor.

The central round headed French windows lead onto a cast iron balcony, oculi and round headed doorcase.

At each end of the central recessed section are projecting pavilions of greater height, with pediments, some round headed windows and wooden blind boxes.

Internally, banisters and some fireplaces have been removed although a multi-colored glass fanlight, doors and other features remains in situ. The number of original features hidden behind 1960s and 1970s chipboard modernization remains unknown.

The front room is fire damaged; whilst the eastern projecting pavilion is damaged by the result of an explosion.

(Previous reports suggest the interior is completely gutted which is untrue).

3.7.3 Chapel

The chapel stands in a courtyard behind the Administration Block. It is not connected to the main hospital apart from small single storey corridor access via two lobbies and two doors.

The exterior is stock brick with red brick window dressing to the lancet windows and slate roof.

It comprises a nave with clerestory and gabled transepts and an apsidal-headed chancel. It has a vibrant polychromatic brick interior with pointed arcaded arcade with octagonal marble columns, roof or arch-braced type with two purlins.

The nave fittings were removed in 2002 after fire destroyed the neighboring Main Hall.

The chancels retains brick and stone reredoes with elaborate gilded cross and some mosais floral and geometrical panles. Sedlia in pointed arched recess and multi-colored plain and patterned tiles.

The windows are fitted with stained glass of multi-colored square glass.

It's gothic style is an interesting and inspiring Victorian take on the 'traditional Parish church'; a familiar environment for many of the patient's which Howell was attempting to replicate. Its interior is completely different to the rest of the hospital.

3.7.4 Wards

These are stark, stock brick wings of two and three storey blocks in stock brick with red brick dogtooth cornice and lintels.

They are fitted with multipane sash windows including some bay windows. Some of the ground floor windows are round-headed.

The interiors have been little altered and retain Howell's original ward designs including day rooms, single rooms (cells), other rooms and plain staircases.

The 1888 extensions had tile-hung upper floors (south facing only). Whilst these wards share the same round-headed windows, their internal organization is slightly different to the original wards.

3.7.5 Water Tower

It has five stages tapering towards the top with two lancet windows to each side, except for the top stage which has six lancets to each side.

The top of the tower has round headed arcading. The doorcase is round headed.

It is unusually brutal and plain for such an overbearing structure, and landmark.

Other buildings in the complex such as the connecting corridors and utilities (kitchens, stores, laundry etc) are bleak, functional and utilitarian. Architecturally they are not of interest. The ballroom, the original central hub of the hospital, was destroyed by fire, and has since been demolished.

3.8 Summary

Cane Hill has several unique characteristics:

• Last remaining pavilion plan asylum.
• Pavilion wards arranged in a radial pattern around a split horseshoe shaped corridor making it the only example of a radiating pavilion plan asylum.
• Pavilion wards staggered; some bisecting the corridor.
• Pavilion wards show the greatest number of patient class types of any UK asylum.
• It is considered the greatest achievement by C H Howell, County Surveyor of Bridges and Public Works for Surrey, and Consultant Architect to the Commissioners Of Lunacy.
• Administration Block, Chapel and Water Tower have strong local interest.