Former Stradreagh Hospital, Also known as Gransha Hospital, Gransha, Enagh, Londonderry BT47 6FN

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Generally two storey Asylum/ Hospital building with symmetrical wings along centre line which runs SSE to NNW.

The front, south west, entrance elevation has a central entrance door with stucco porch and pedimented head over, with ball finial. The tympanum bears the date of construction, 1903. The door surround is arched with elongated brackets either side to pediment. The porch base appears to be moulded sandstone. The entrance door is boarded up and was unobserved. The entrance porch is flanked both sides by single storey bays (octagonal) with three sliding sash windows and corbelled brick eaves directly below ogee cast iron gutter.

Symmetrical wings run south to north on either side of front entrance block. Each wing terminates in a perpendicular return block to the south, with ablution block behind, and to a single storey corridor to the north.

The corridors at the northern end of both wings, along with the rear return of the central block, connect to east and west elevations of a large single storey hall/ refectory. Various ancillary service structures are arranged unsymmetrically to the north of the hall/ refectory and a modern boiler house sits to the north west.

The southern return blocks to the side wings are symmetricatal about building centre line. Both feature single storey bays (octagonal) with three sliding sash windows and corbelled brick eaves on southern and west/east elevations. A steel escape stair exits from first floor outermost corner on each side. The western return block exhibits fire damage with extensive loss of roof and first floor structure.

Two storey ablution blocks sit behind southern return blocks of both wings. They are connected to the junction of the return block and wing by two storey angled corridors, with high level brick eaves to flat roofs. The ablution blocks have an attic storey accessed from external high level wing side. All services to ablution blocks are concentrated on wing side elevation. Both ablution blocks have single storey section at northern end, with brick eaves to hipped roof.

Single storey corridors at northern end of both wings connect to main hall/ refectory. Glazed sides to both corridors have been removed and infilled in concrete block. Part timber and glazed roof is evident to both corridors, supported by extant cast iron trusses.

The entire building, bar rear ancillary service areas and stucco entrance porch, is Flemish bond red brick with matching moulded brick plinth. A suspended timber floor is evident by extant cast galvanised steel ventilators.

Windows to all elevations are timber sliding sash. Ground floor windows are boarded up so were unobserved, all exhibit seven course high voussoired brick heads (two full bricks). First floor windows are 4/4 timber painted sliding sash to entrance (south west) elevation, 2/2 timber painted sliding sash elsewhere and all have six course high voussoired brick heads (one and a half full bricks). Most visible windows exhibit missing glass, however original glass panes remain. Window sills are profiled sandstone with raised stools.

All elevations have high level cornice in Victoria Stone (cast) with deep ogee moulding to 150mm vertical face below ogee cast iron guttering. Downpipes appear mixture of steel and cast iron, 100 to 150mm square, with matching clamp brackets. Waste and vent pipes are modern upvc painted to match rainwater goods.

All roofs are hipped and where covering is extant, are natural slate, possibly green Westmoreland. Central block and side wings have tall brick chimneys in matching Flemish bond, with stone caps (possibly cast) and terracotta pots. All lead flashing has been removed to leave timber rolls proud on all roof hips. Ridge ventilators appear to have been removed from all roofs. Roofs of the ancillary service structures to the north side of main hall/ refectory are missing and/ or exhibit severe fire damage.

The southern entrance courtyard is in bitumen tarmacadam. The building is surrounded by areas of grass and bitumen tarmacadam access roadways and is set in grounds with mature hedgerows and trees which may pre-date the building itself and relate to the earlier asylum building now gone.

Walls: Red brick flemish bond
Roof: Natural slate (possibly Westmoreland)
Windows: Painted timber sliding sash patterns as described above
RWGs:.painted cast iron and steel/aluminium

Historical information

This former asylum was built in 1903-05 to designs by local architect Matthew Alexander Robinson.

It is believed to stand on or close to ‘Dergbruach’, a medieval church of which no trace has yet been identified (SMR ref LDY 14:13). Some time before c.1830 a farmhouse was built on the site, which was either rebuilt or extended c.1840s by Samuel McClintock to become ‘Gransha Lodge’. This appears to have largely demolished after his death in 1866 with the land subsequently acquired by W. & P.B. McLearn, owners of the Foyle Street Guano Stores.

In 1896 the site was approved for a ‘scheme for providing the necessary accommodation for the lunatics belonging to the city and county’ and the land purchased from McLearn. Here, the Governors of the existing County Asylum on Strand Road (built 1829) intended to construct an ‘auxiliary building’ in order to relieve pressure on the old institution, and by March 1899 they had completed a structure ‘which form[s] what might described three sides of quadrangle…from plans supplied the Board of Control, under the superintendence of Mr. J. W. Gardiner, architect, and Mr. Ferguson, clerk of works.’ Costing ‘about £5,000’, this appears to have been a relatively compact C-shaped structure that stood to the north-west of the the present building, which consisted of a ‘principal block’ with ‘two fine dormitories, each 52 feet by 35 feet, capable of accommodating 60 patients’ and ‘two commodious dayrooms, 36 feet by 25 feet each, with large bay windows overlooking the Foyle, and commanding a most picturesque view of the finely wooded slopes the opposite shore and of the hills stretching away to Grianan.’

Despite this, overcrowding at the old Strand Road asylum continued to be a problem, and in 1901 it was decided to augment the facilities at Gransha. Thereafter followed a two-year debate on the form and cost of the new building(s), throughout which it became clear that keeping the cost down was a major priority. Various schemes including single-storey villas were discussed, whilst the initial tenders proved much more costly than envisaged. It was not until April 1903, (after considerable discussion with the prospective architect and contractor regarding the use and prices of materials), that the final two-storey design by Matthew Alexander Robinson was finally accepted, and a building contract with the firm of McLaughlin & Harvey of Belfast signed.

According to the ‘Irish Builder’, work on the new asylum commenced in June 1903 and was completed in May 1905. But whilst the buildings do seem to have been up by the latter date (their entire footprint - at least- is present on the 1904 OS map) they were not ready for the reception of patients, the ‘Derry Journal’ reporting in May 1906 that at Gransha ‘the completion of the new project cripples along in ridiculous delay. Its surface is dotted with a few buildings to the accommodation of [only] 80 patients…’. This slowness may have been partly down to the fact that getting an adequate water supply to the new building was still in the course of being resolved into 1907. The new complex was largely up and running by autumn of that year, however, (with the entire site catering from around 170 patients), an inspector’s report of September praising the facilities, which ‘had been erected at a very moderate cost’.

Four attendants’ houses (also designed by Robinson) were added to the site at the same time as the building of the new complex and he was to design another in 1914 and six more in 1923. In c.1926 the hospital farm buildings, reutilised 19th century (and possibly earlier) structures immediate west of the asylum, were replaced with a new model farm to the north, to which another house was added in 1933 and six farm worker’s dwellings in 1955.

In 1932, the original asylum in the City and that at Gransha had became jointly known as the ‘Londonderry City and County Mental Hospital’, and were retitled ‘Londonderry and Gransha Hospital’ in 1948, due to the fact that both (with the recent advent of the NHS) were admitting elderly patients ‘for which every little could be done except maintain them’.

By the latter date plans were being formulated to expand provision at Gransha, and from 1956 and over the course of much the following two decades a series of villas were constructed within the grounds as a replacement for the old Strand Road building. The last of the patients in the former were transferred to the new facilities in February 1968 and the new ‘Gransha Hospital’ officially opened in May the following year.

Changes in mental healthcare in the later 20th century witnessed the gradual reduction in residential patients at Gransha as a whole. At some point post-1976 the original 1899 asylum building set to the north-west was vacated and later demolished. By 1992 the main 1903-05 complex was only in partial use by hospital staff. In that year the recently established Oakgrove integrated College acquired the use of half of the building, taking over the remainder the following year. The College completed a new school building to the north (close to where the model farm had stood) in 2004 and the old building was abandoned.

In March 2016 the complex was damaged in a deliberate fire.

References - Primary sources
1 OS maps - 1830, 1853, 1904, 1924, 1949, 1965, 1976
2 PRONI VAL12B/32/12A-F, VAL12B/32/14K Annual valuation revision books - 1862-1929
3 ‘Derry Journal’, 16 September 1896, p.5; 6 March 1899, p.3; 22 July 1901, p.7; 19 August 1901, p.7; 23 September 1901, p.7; 19 October 1901, p.6; 20 January 1902, p.3; 22 December 1902 ,p.2; 19 January 1903, p.6; 23 March 1903, p.6; 3 June 1903, p.7; 20 November 1905, p.5; 22 January 1906, p.7; 24 September 1906, p.6; 18 August 1924, p.3; 9 November 1951, p.5
4 ‘Irish Builder’, 2 July 1902; 23 October 1902; 6, 20 November 1902; 4 Dec 1902; 12 Mar 1903; 16 January 1904; 12 Mar 1904; 2 July 1904; 13 August 1904; 10, 24 September 1904; 19 November 1904; 31 Dec 1904; 20 May 1905; 22 September 1906; 12 September 1914; 24 February 1923; 5 May 1923; 23 September 1933
5 ‘Northern Constitution’, 30 November 1901, p.7; 4 January 1902, p.4; 29 Mar 1902 p.6; 13 December 1902, p.6
6 ‘Belfast News-Letter’, 6 December 1902, p.10; 17 January 1903, p.8;
7 ‘Coleraine Chronicle’, 28 March 1903, p.6; 27 June 1903, p.7;
8 ‘Londonderry Sentinel’, 3 June 1905. p.6; 22 July 1905, p.5; 16 November 1907, p.5; 25 August 1908, p.5; 8 December 1927, p.6; 20 February 1932, p.11; 21 October 1950, p.4; 22 September 1955 ,p.2
9 ‘Mid-Ulster Mail’, 27 October 1906, p.7
10 ‘Northern Whig’, 18 October 1948, p.2
11 ‘Belfast Telegraph’, 19 May 1969 , p.10

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

S. Authenticity
V. Authorship
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
Z. Rarity
R. Age

Evaluation

Gransha Hospital was built in 1903-05 to a design by local Architect Matthew Alexander Robinson as an auxiliary asylum for the County and City of Londonderry. In some respects it is a not atypical late Victorian / Edwardian institutional building, being a symmetrical red-brick, hip-roofed composition with its various wings and pavilions having uniform fenestration interspersed with canted bays and a restrained but effective Baroque Style entrance. Due to its subsidiary role to the main (now demolished) Derry asylum, however, it is something of an unusual - and in the Northern Ireland context - rare structure. For in comparison to its sprawling and more decidedly institutional counterparts at Holywell, Omagh, Knockbracken and Downpatrick, it is a relatively compact and low-proportioned structure, with the well-preserved parkland setting adding to its somewhat domestic, almost country house appearance. Despite years of neglect and a portion having been gutted by fire, much of the building is in place and it retains some fine original internal detailing. As such it remains a fine example of Edwardian ‘civic’ architecture as well as an important piece of Derry’s social history.

General comments

LDY014:013 - CHURCH, GRAVEYARD & possible ENCLOSURE (from APs): DERGBRUAGH (ecclesiastical site) to NW of hospital building