The Remodelling of an Old Asylum

Abstract

It not infrequently happens that the senior assistant medical officer of a modern institution for the insane is elected medical superintendent of an old asylum. Such was my lot when early in 1887 I was chosen by the Court of Aldermen of the City of London to fill the post of chief officer to their asylum at Stone, and I entered upon my duties with no light heart, because it was early apparent that many structural and administrative changes would be necessary to bring this institution abreast the times. The asylum is constructed on the gallery or corridor plan, in linear form, extending from east to west, with projections north and south at several points. This linear form is modified by semi-detached laundry and workshop blocks, which are connected by covered ways to the central administration situated midway between these blocks, and at right angles to the line of the wards, which it intersects as it runs north and south. The style of architecture is Gothic, of white brick with Suffolk quoins, stone mullions, and dressings to the gables; the roof is of Broseley tiles. There is a handsome tower of white brick and stone with embattlements; the central portion of the tower is an iron smoke shaft, the part intervening between this and the outer wall being a heated extraction shaft for removing the foul air from the galleries and single rooms. The buildings are of two stories, except to the south of the central administrative block, where there is a third story for the old chapel (now being converted into a recreation hall), and for some of the staff bedrooms of either side. The estate comprised in 1887 thirty-three acres.