Details
SJ 88 NE CHEADLE AND BRAMHALL WILMSLOW ROAD
558/5/10007 Cheadle Royal Hospital,
main Wing
II
Hospital, 1848-9, opened 1849 and with extensions of 1861, 1877 and 1882. Designed by Richard Lane, the winner of the competition for a replacement for the Manchester Lunatic Hospital of 1763. Red brick, with ashlar sandstone dressings, coped gables, tall ridge stacks, and a Welsh- slated roof. Gothic Revival style, with Jacobean detailing to later additions. Fully-developed 3 courtyard plan, but originally 'E' plan, with entrance range and flanking 'L' shaped wings, subsequently lengthened and extended laterally to fully enclose the outer courtyards, and to create the central service courtyard. ENTRANCE RANGE: east elevation of 3 storeys above a basement, 3 bays, the entrance bay set back, with wide Tudor-arched doorway below 4-light mullioned and transomed first floor window, and 2-light mullioned window to second floor. Advanced flanking 2-storey, 6-light bays have shallow parapets, with 2-light windows beneath hood moulds above. Advanced gabled bay to each side elevation, which extend westwards by 6 bays, with lower ranges beyond. FLANKING RANGES: of 3 storeys and of 14 bays; bays 2 and 6 have 2 storey canted bay windows, bays 8 and 12 have wide advanced gables with 2-storey canted bay windows, and bay 14 is a less advanced terminal gable. Many cast-iron window frames with lozenge glazing. Side elevations repeat the pattern of the front flanking ranges, but have been extended in a Dutch gabled style. REAR CROSSWING: an addition which extends across the full width of the hospital, with lower 2-storey ranges of 7 bays linking with an advanced 3 and 2-storeyed rear entrance range which gives access to a central service courtyard. This rear entrance range of 7 bays has advanced outer bays with wide Dutch gables, and a central entrance archway with a pedimented canted oriel above, a Dutch gable over, and with a louvred cupola behind. CHAPEL; set at rear of entrance range. opened in 1853, extended in 1871 and rebuilt in 1904, with 4-light Perp-style window to upper part of gable onto service courtyard. INTERIORS: much altered, but with some surviving detail to central entrance range. Art important survival of the early phase of the Victorian asylum system, little altered externally, and significant in historical terms as one of only 2 asylums remaining from the period in a near-complete condition. The hospital was also the first to accept voluntary patients, a practice not permitted in the pauper asylums. (The hospital was built for the middle classes).
Listing NGR: SJ8539286476
