Broadmoor Hospital, Main Range including the Chapel/Hall (block 5), Dorset House

Details

SU86SE
674-1/13/306

CROWTHORNE
BROADMOOR ROAD (east side (off))
Broadmoor Hospital, Main Range including the Chapel/Hall (block 5), Dorset House

12/10/00

II

Hospital for mentally disordered offenders. 1858-63, with alterations and additions 1886-88, 1891, 1900, 1913 and late C20. Designed by Sir Joshua Jebb as the State Asylum planned to house all the Criminal Lunatics in England and Wales. Red brick with yellow brick arcading and bands, with Bath stone; chapel and recreation hall of yellow brick with red brick detailing. Slated hipped roofs with yellow brick Lombardic eaves cornices. Mostly three storeys. Windows are round-arched and mostly paired, some in shallow round-arched recesses; many retain the original pivoted top ventilation panes. Former main entrance to the north with twin towers having arcaded opening and paired round-arched windows beneath a Lombardic cornice.

Central archway with two stages of blind arcading; the lower polychrome brick, the upper in stone and flanking a large clock inscribed "Dent" and "London" and having an apron of carved stone foliage. Entrance leads into a cloistered courtyard. Courtyard facade of entrance block with four arcaded window above the arch and a similar clock set in a pediment. Bays to each side with paired round-arched windows, those at ground floor set in shallow round-arched recesses. North facade in similar style with a four-storey tower having arcaded top storey openings. South facade of symmetrical design having projecting end bays and staggered projecting inner bays.

Central recreation hall with chapel over has a double-height canted bay and lower flanking bays with a blind oculus to each floor.

INTERIOR: retains much of the original plan form although modernised. Recreation hall with stage and ornate cast iron columns supporting heavy beams of the chapel above. Two double-leaf entrances of considerable interest having doorcases reputedly carved in a classical style by Richard Dadd. Chapel has exposed yellow brick with polychrome brick aisle arcading on cast iron columns; polychrome brick chancel arch. Open roof of timber trusses; western gallery.

HISTORY: the principle of "criminal" insanity was first defined in 1723 by unless offenders could afford the cost of maintenance in a private asylum the only place they could be held was in the county gaol. Two blocks were built for "criminal lunatics" at Bethlehem Hospital in 1816 but it was not until 1860 when an Act "to make better provision for the custody and care of Criminal Lunactics" was passed, following a campaign led by the Earl of Shaftesbury, that action was taken. Broadmoor opened in May 1863 under the management of the Home Office. Although Sir Joshua Jebb, a military engineer and the first Surveyor General of Prisons, had been responsible for designing Pentonville model prison 20 years earlier, his design for Broadmoor was much closer to that of contemporary county lunatic asylums reflecting the attitude towards the 500 male and female patients. One of the first patients to arrive from Bethleham Hospital was the painter Richard Dadd whose insanity had caused him to murder his father but who was able to continue painting picture of considerable quality.

Late C20 additions to rear not of special interest.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

489338

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Websites
British Geological Survey, Strategic Stone Study, accessed 04/02/2020 from https://www.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/buildingStones/StrategicStoneStudy/EH_atlases.html

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