ESTATE DEVELOPMENT
listed ballroom into an energy centre that will link into a district heating system for the Springfield Village development. In addition, it is providing vibrant retail spaces around Chapel Square, and has set up an estate management company that will operate and maintain the common elements of the site when it is finished. The receipts from the surplus land, together with Trust capital contributions, are funding the development of the new mental health facilities.
Springfield overview
Springfield University Hospital (SUH) is located in Tooting Bec, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, with the main accesses to the site being via Glenburnie Road and Burntwood Lane. The site covers some 82 acres, and takes an hour to walk around. When I first visited the site, 69 buildings were spread disparately across the site, most were in NHS ownership, some had been ‘mothballed’, and some were operational. One can imagine how confusing the site was, and it is testament to the Trust that, despite poor infrastructure, it still delivers high quality and much-needed mental health services. Many of the buildings – such as the mortuary (Island House), chapel, ballroom, and infirmary (White Lodge) – reflect the historical and social development of the site, and many eminent staff are remembered through either building names or wards. For example, the Diamond Estate is named after Hugh Diamond, a Medical Superintendent from 1849-1858, and an accomplished photographer, who took acclaimed photographs of many of the service-users. A large part of the site was used as a golf course by the Central London Golf Club. Now metropolitan open land, it will form a new 32-acre park, the largest new park to be built in London since the Olympic Park in 2012.
Site history
Until the 19th century, the mentally ill were often cared for by their own families or in private ‘madhouses’, where standards were often very low. The Asylum Act of 1808 encouraged the building of public hospitals for those that could not pay. Progress was slow; the building of the Asylum at Springfield was started in about 1838 to the design of William Mosely. It was constructed in a symmetrical Tudor-style, with gables and twisted chimneys (since removed as dangerous and not replaced). The design was praised in contemporary architectural journals, which commented on the subtle angles and variegated brickwork that broke the monotony of the long façade. The interior, however, was dismissed as void of interest, except for the main hall and staircase. It was opened on 14th June 1841, and admitted 299 patients transferred from private ‘madhouses’. The main building is now Grade II listed, and is currently on English Heritage’s ‘At Risk’ register, although this is
THE NETWORK | JULY 2020
Figure 3: The Trust Artefact Room in the Main Building; this is to be re-provided by new listed building owner, City & Country, and will be available to the general public for viewing.
now mitigated by the new building owner, City & Country, a specialist in restoring these types of building.
Originally an 18th-century mansion Springfield Park was originally an 18th- century mansion, with farm buildings, stables, and a coachman’s house. It included gardens and an indoor riding school. Springfield Hospital was originally known as the first ‘Surrey County Pauper Lunatic Asylum’, later becoming one of the ‘Middlesex County Lunatic Asylums.’ The south eastern boundary followed the parish boundary between Clapham and Streatham. The gardens and grounds of the original lunatic asylum were an intrinsic part of the hospital, and played a key role in the treatment and wellbeing of patients. These gardens, together with the Airing Courts, will be restored by City & Country. Admissions soon outnumbered those discharged, and extensive new buildings were required, according to a pattern of
expansion that was, again, typical of the time. The wings of the Asylum building were extended by Lapidge and opened in 1849 (Holly, Larch, etc. wards to the west, and Orchid, Sunflower, etc. to the east), creating space for an additional 400 patients. The development of special facilities at the hospital proceeded slowly. Interestingly, noting current COVID-19 challenges, the Cottage Hospital (1872), now White Lodge, was built to separate infectious patients to limit epidemics in the hospital.
The most ambitious addition The construction of the ‘Annexe for Idiot Children’ – as mentally disabled and cognitively impaired young people were then known, (now the Elizabeth Newton Wing, Fig. 2) was perhaps the most ambitious addition, providing specific facilities for the separation of mentally disabled children from those suffering from mental illness. The Annexe was opened in
Figure 4: The 1881 chapel, used as a gymnastics club, and now owned by City & Country. 19
©Kajima
©Kajima
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