Cheadle Royal Hospital

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A mid-19th-century, purpose-built lunatic asylum set in its own contemporary ornamental grounds.

DESCRIPTION

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Cheadle Royal Hospital stands to the south of Cheadle, on the west side of the Wilmslow Road. The 9ha site, occupying level ground, is bounded to the south and west by C20 housing development, to the east by the Wilmslow Road, and to the north by open ground, formerly part of the hospital grounds. The setting is partly suburban and partly agricultural, with the remains of former hospital farmland to the north and, to the east, the grounds of Bruntwood Park.

ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES

From an early C20 lodge on the Wilmslow Road, an avenue leads 250m west to the forecourt below the east front of the hospital building. Set back from the north side of the drive, beyond the putting green, and surrounded by lawns broken by specimen trees are the Gables Hostel and several detached villa houses, built in 1866, intended for the use of patients who it was considered would benefit from the change from the ordinary routine of life in the main asylum wards.

A second early C20 lodge stands 200m further north, providing a back drive off the Wilmslow Road. This passes to the north of Russell House, built as a hostel for resident long-term patients, and the chapel, opened in 1904. It then turns south to lead to the forecourt on the east front of the main hospital, passing the Astell Day Hospital, opened in 1959, which stands immediately to the north of the main building. The latter stands on the site of the former northern section of the formal gardens.

The back drive also provides access to North House, constructed to accommodate the expansion of the hospital in the first years of the C20 and opened in 1903. It stands in its own gardens, 250m north of the main hospital.

A further drive leads 350m east along an avenue from the lane on the western boundary of the grounds, to the west front of the hospital buildings. At the western end of this west drive, standing 350m north-west of the main hospital building, is St Ann's Villa, built as a private hospital for the treatment and education of epileptic children, but purchased by the Hospital in 1887. On the northern side of the drive, 150m west of the main hospital complex, stands the nurses? home, under consideration before the First World War, but not built until 1937. Another tree-lined drive leads from south to north across the west side of the main hospital buildings.

PRINCIPAL BUILDING

Cheadle Royal Hospital (Richard Lane 1848-9, listed grade II) stands towards the centre of the site. Built of red brick with stone dressings and of three storeys, it is in Gothic Revival style, with extensions of 1861, 1877 and 1882. The central block, surrounding a courtyard, is flanked by two symmetrically placed further courtyards to north and south which accommodated male and female patients separately.

GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS

The main block is surrounded by walled gardens, the walls carrying decorative iron railings. Within the walls, to either side of the east avenue, is a sunken flower garden. Further south, occupying the south-east corner of the walled area, is a bowling green. This is divided from the lawn to the south of the hospital by a brick wall with gateway through, and there is also a pair of iron gates in the south wall. A walk leads along the southern edge of the lawn in the centre of which stands a wooden shelter. A cast-iron drinking fountain forms a feature on the northern walk which leads alongside the south facade of the building. The basic layout closely follows that shown in a ground plan of the hospital, and elevation of the east front, of 1848. East of the walled gardens, and to the south of the east drive, lies the cricket ground, screened from the road by the boundary belt of trees. A pavilion stands on the southern side of the pitch.

KITCHEN GARDEN

South of the southern walled gardens is an open area, beyond which, to the south-west, stands a row of late C20 housing, occupying the site of the former kitchen garden. The ground plan of 1848 (Brockbank 1934) shows that the original intention was to site the kitchen garden to the north of the ornamental gardens, although by the 1870s it lay south of the southern walled gardens (OS 25" map published 1872), laid out in cruciform pattern with orchard trees flanking the paths.

The model dairy farm, formerly standing to the east of the kitchen garden, provided the Hospital's supply of milk.

REFERENCES

Dr J Conolly, The Treatment of the Insane without Mechanical Restraint (1856, new edition 1973)

E M Brockbank, A Short History of Cheadle Royal from its Foundation in 1766 (1934)

N Roberts, Cheadle Royal Hospital. A Bicentenary History (1967)

Maps

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1872; 2nd edition published 1898; 2nd edition revised 1910

Description written: October 1998

Edited: October 1999