Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB25/15/009 G

Address :
Former St Columba's Roman Catholic Church Knockbracken Healthcare Park Saintfield Road Belfast County Down BT8 8BH

Townland:
Ballydollaghan

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Survey 2:
B2

Date of Listing:
20/01/2014 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Church

Former Use
Church

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
Yes

Derelict:
Yes

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OS Map No:
147/14SW

IG Ref:
J3500 6775

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Owner Category

Health Board

Exterior Description And Setting

A double height Roman Catholic church built c.1910 simultaneously with a matching adjacent Inter-demoninational Church, to designs by George Thomas Hine of London, supervised by Belfast architects Graeme-Watt and Tulloch. Rectangular plan form with abutting altar and entrance porches. Located within the Knockbracken Health Care Estate, east of the Saintfield Road, south of Belfast. Pitched natural slate roof (removed to the southwest pitch) with terracotta ridge tiles. Cast-iron ogee moulded rainwater goods. Red-brick chimney with artificial stone cap and single terracotta pot. Red-brick walling laid to Flemish bond with artificial dress stone. Quadra-partite square-headed windows with leaded windows and long-and-short artificial stone surrounds; chamfered cills, heads and jambs. Principal doors removed. The principal gable faces southwest and is a symmetrically arranged; skew-table with chamfered coping stones. Large Tudor-arched central window with long-and-short surrounds; geometric mullions and transoms; hood moulding. Matching gabled porches to either side; diminutive two-stage diagonal buttress flanking Tudor-arched door opening with chamfered artificial stone surrounds; moulded timber barge boards and timber soffitts; door removed. The left elevation is six-windows wide separated by single-stage brick buttresses with artificial stone capping. The far left window incorporates a door into the central windowpanes with four squared diminutive fixed lights over. The rear gable faces northeast and is abutted by a gable-ended altar. The altar gable comprises a Tudor-arched window (smaller than the principal elevation) with long-and-short surrounds with two mullions and a single transom; flanked by two-stage angle buttresses. The right cheek of the altar is abutted by a hipped roof vestry comprising a square-headed door entrance to the northeast east elevation and a tri-partite window to the southwest. The right elevation is six-windows wide separated by single-stage brick buttresses with artificial stone capping. The far right window incorporates a door into the central windowpanes with four squared diminutive fixed lights over. Setting: The church sits adjacent to its matching Protestant counterpart, located in a rural
setting close to the city. Positioned at the crest of “Scoot Hill”, and largely concealed from view by mature woodland, the site falls to the north with extended views towards the nearby farm and Belfast beyond. Accessed from the east, by a narrow overgrown path, further unmaintained vegetation surrounding the churches has in some instances taken hold of the building fabric. The pair of churches form part of the group of buildings which make up the Knockbracken Healthcare Park (formerly Purdysburn Villa Colony Asylum Complex) - (HB25/15/009 A - J). Roofing: Natural slate (partially removed) Walling: Red-brick/artificial stone Windows: Leaded (removed) RWG: Cast-iron

Architects

Watt and Tulloch

Historical Information

The two churches at Purdysburn Villa Colony were added to the site as part of a phase of expansion that took place between 1909 and 1912. ‘St Columba’s R C Church’ is first shown, captioned, on the fourth edition OS map of 1920-21 on part of the demesne of the former Purdysburn House of 1825 (now gone) and form part of a collection of villas and a hospital that are together captioned ‘Belfast District Asylum (Purdysburn Villa Colony)’. The churches are not separately listed in valuation records. The Catholic church is paired with its Protestant counterpart and set apart from the villa colony buildings. (Original plans; Irish Builder; Valuation records) The building of the churches in their ‘beautiful grove’ reflects the enlightened attitude to mental health that was promulgated by pioneering Medical Superintendent William Graham and his architectural advisors. They are situated on ‘Scoot Hill’ at what was then the centre of the asylum estate and were therefore accessible for the female patients in Purdysburn House and the male patients occupying the ‘villa colony’. (Belfast Book) In recent years, however, the churches have fallen into disuse and are now derelict. Purdysburn appears to represent the earliest and most fully realised example in Britain or Ireland of the ‘villa colony’ design of lunatic asylum and as such should be seen as an important landmark in the history of asylum architecture. The colony model can, with hindsight, be seen both as the peak of a century-long evolution of asylum design and as a swan song in terms of centralised mass treatment of the mentally ill. Few asylums on this scale were built after the opening decades of the twentieth century, but it is a measure of the flexibility of the ‘villa colony’ model that Purdysburn, albeit renamed and contracted in size, continues to provide mental health services to this day in a radically altered healthcare environment. (Notes on Asylum Architecture) The use of the term ‘colony’ to describe a therapeutic community has a long history going back to at least the early nineteenth century and perhaps beyond. At Gheel in Belgium, for example, a pilgrimage site for the sick and insane, visitors had boarded out with villagers since the Middle Ages, and this boarding-out arrangement, copied elsewhere, became known as a ‘family colony’. However, it was not until the closing decades of the twentieth century that medical authorities began to conceive of a ‘colony’ model for the treatment of the insane, epileptics, the ‘mentally deficient’ and even the unemployed which would consist of a collection of villas around central administration facilities, as at Purdysburn. This style of community was first widely practised in Germany and the United States and it is these examples that are quoted in early discussions of the idea, but in 1900 when William Graham, Medical Superintendent of the Committee of Management of Purdysburn Lunatic Asylum, then housed in the former Purdysburn House, persuaded the committee to erect their new asylum for the city on the Villa Colony principle, there were no examples of such a colony for the insane in Britain or Ireland. (Notes on Asylum Architecture; Thomson; Irish Times; Reuber) For Graham, the colony offered several clear advantages over the asylum architecture of the past. The villas were intended to be ‘homely’, allowing patients to be socialised in a semi-domestic environment with an intimate atmosphere. They permitted the insane to be ‘classified’ according to mental and physical condition. Additionally, the patients, who were overwhelmingly working-class, could benefit from the idyllic rural setting at a time when mental problems tended to be seen as the result of overwork in an industrial environment. Productive physical labour, was however, seen to be important to the healing process and patients were set to work growing their own food, a strategy which benefitted the asylum as well as the patients. Administrators also found much to their liking in the colony principle. It addressed the problem of institutional overcrowding as colonies could expand villa by villa as necessary with minimal disruption and the costs were lower than building and maintaining a traditional asylum. Graham was later to state categorically, “This system, as everybody knows, or ought to know, is the fruit of the highest scientific study in the care of the insane, and springs from the two dominant principles of our time – exact and accurate knowledge and a love of humanity which counts no sacrifice too great for the sake of those who have been grievously handicapped in the race of life”. (Irish Times; Notes on Asylum Architecture; Thomson; Reuber) When Purdysburn was begun it was envisaged that all the mental patients in Belfast would eventually move there. These patients had been housed in the Belfast Union workhouse in the Lisburn Road and in an asylum of 1829 on the site now occupied by the Royal Victoria Hospital. The Grosvenor Road asylum reflected prevailing attitudes about mental health at the time it was built and was of a prison-like design, comprising numerous single cells with small, heavily-barred windows. High walls surrounded the building, the purpose of which was to protect the public from the inmates. (Reuber) Perhaps understandably, however, the Management Committee proceeded cautiously with the new asylum at Purdysburn. Work began on the first two villas in 1902, to designs by Graeme Watt and Tulloch and these were completed in 1904. Meanwhile, London County Council had been to the United States to investigate the ‘cottage system’ in Maryland USA and reported favourably on it in 1902. They adopted a dispersed plan for their epileptic colony at Ewell which was completed the following year in 1903 and dispersed units were added to its nearby lunatic asylum at Long Grove (1903-7), although the plan of this building was still largely formal and symmetrical with attached pavilions. A dispersed plan was also adopted in some Poor Law ‘imbecile’ colonies such as Monyhull Hall in Birmingham (1908) and Prudhoe near Newcastle (1913), but no other lunatic asylums appear to have been purpose-built as fully dispersed villa colonies, until the construction of Shenley in Middlesex in 1934-7, which was built around a pre-existing mansion and outbuildings. Purdysburn was, to a large extent, the architectural pioneer in this field. (Notes on Asylum Architecture; Thomson; Irish Times; Reuber) In 1906, Purdysburn was visited by the Royal Commission on the Care and Treatment of the Feeble-minded, who wished to see the working of the ‘villa system’. The same year, as two further villas neared completion, the Belfast Asylum Committee demonstrated their confidence in the new system by stating their intention to complete Purdysburn to accommodate the ‘entire insane of the city’ and by inviting George T Hine, architect to the English Lunacy Commissioners to ‘consult and advise generally the committee, medical superintendent and architects, regarding the laying down of the scheme on the Villa Colony system’. G T Hine, ‘the most accomplished and successful of asylum architects’ was a supporter of the colony idea, having been exposed to examples in Germany and the United States through the influence of psychiatrist T Knowles Stansfield and had incorporated dispersed units into his designs for Long Grove. Hine’s involvement at Purdysburn appears to have been largely conceptual, as the surviving drawings for the next stage which comprised the construction of four further villas, an administration building, recreation hall and hospital are signed by Graeme Watt and Tulloch. However, an article in the Irish Builder of June 1908 does suggest that Hine produced complete plans for the colony and that Hine was to visit the site before work began. The total cost was to be £110,000 and the new accommodation was to house patients transferred from Grosvenor Road and Ballymena. (Notes on Asylum Architecture; Thomson; Reuber) Protestant and catholic churches were completed in 1912 and further villas added. The same year the Lunacy Inspectors praised the ‘air of freedom and comfort and the pleasant and cheerful surroundings of Purdysburn’ which were ‘highly conducive to the physical health of the patients as well as to their mental recovery..There could be no question that for healthfulness and comfort the buildings and site at Purdysburn were unsurpassed by any public asylum in the United Kingdom’. And, added the inspector, this had been achieved ‘at moderate cost’. By 1914 more than two thirds of Belfast’s mental patients were housed in Purdysburn and Dr Graham remarked that, “The change from the old to the new order...was not a mere bodily transference from one place to another. Indeed for many of them it must mean almost as if they took part in a transformation scene. No longer with visions contained in narrow limits, they can enjoy the ever shifting scenery of earth and sky, and experience the healing influences of nature...it is impossible to exaggerate the significance of the work as a historical contribution to asylum care and management”. (Irish Times 27th June 1914) William Graham died suddenly in November 1917 and his work was then carried on by his nephew Dr S J Graham. (British Medical Journal) In 1917 the original hospital building was extended and in 1927 three further villas, a gate lodge and Medical Superintendent’s residence added. In 1936, two further villas and an infirmary and reception block were completed as Belfast continued to grow and put sustained pressure on the accommodation. The number of patients peaked at over 1800 in the mid-1950s but now lies at around 300, largely due to changes in mental health provision and an increased emphasis on treating people within the community. The site is now shared with around thirty voluntary organisations who work in the healthcare field. (Irish Builder; Irish Times) References: Primary Sources 1.PRONI OS/6/3/9/3 Third Edition OS Map 1901-2 2.PRONI OS/6/3/9/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1920-21 3.PRONI OS/6/3/9/5 Fifth Edition OS Map 1920-31 4.PRONI OS/6/3/9/7 Seventh Edition OS Map 1938 5.PRONI VAL/1/B/321 Townland Valuation (1828-40) 6.PRONI VAL/2/B/3/29 Griffiths Valuation (1861) 7.PRONI VAL/12/B/20/7A-F Annual Revisions (1864-1929) 8.PRONI VAL/12/F/4/9/3 – Annual Revisions (1930-35) 9.1901 census online 10.1911 census online 11.Irish Times, 23rd September 1903 12.Irish Times, 12th January 1905 13.Irish Times, 10th April 1906 14.Irish Times, 7th May 1906 15.Irish Times, 28th May 1907 16.Irish Times, 4th March, 1910 17.Irish Times, 19th May 1910 18.Irish Times, 6th August, 1910 19.Irish Times, 8th August 1912 20,Irish Times, 17th August, 1912 21.Irish Times, 14th December 1912 22.Irish Times, 18th October, 1913 23.Irish Times, 13th January 1914 24.Irish Times, 16th May 1914 25.Irish Times, 27th June 1914 26.Irish Times, 7th November 1917 27.British Medical Journal 17th November 1917 28.Irish Builder 10th April 1902 29.Irish Builder 20th April 1907 30.Irish Builder 18th April 1908 31.Irish Builder 27th June 1908 32.Irish Builder 31st October 1908 33.Irish Builder 28th November 1908 34.Irish Builder 12th December 1908 35.Irish Builder 28th January 1909 36.Irish Builder 1 May 1909 37.Irish Builder 29th May 1909 38.Irish Builder 26th June 1909 39.Irish Builder 10th July 1909 40.Irish Builder 19th February 1910 41.Irish Builder 18thFebruary 1911 42.Irish Builder 23rd August 1924 43.The Belfast Book, 1929 Secondary Sources 1.Craig, D H “Belfast and Its Infirmary – The Growth of a Hospital 1838 to 1948” 2.Mills, Jason “What’s He Building in There?” The Vacuum, Issue 15 3.Reuber, M “The architecture of psychological management: the Irish asylums (1801-1922)” Psychological Medicine, 1996, Vol 26, p.1179-1189 4.Roberts, Andrew ‘Notes on Asylum Architecture’ (available at http://studymore.org.uk/4_13_ta.htm) 5.Thomson, M “The Problem of Mental Deficiency, Eugenics, Democracy and Social Policy in Britain c1870-1959) Oxford Historical Monographs, 1996

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion C. Ornamentation J. Setting K. Group value

Historic Interest

R. Age T. Historic Importance X. Local Interest Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance Z. Rarity V. Authorship

Evaluation

A Roman Catholic church built c.1910 built along with a matching adjacent Inter-demoninational Church, to designs by George Thomas Hine of London, (architect to the English Lunacy Commissioners), supervised by Belfast architects Graeme-Watt and Tulloch. One of a pair of churches of simple and modest Gothic Revival style and proportions. No longer in use, both the churches have fallen into disrepair, with little of their interiors remaining. The churches are sited within the former Purdysburn House Demesne, which partly falls within the Knockbracken Healthcare Park, formerly Purdysburn Villa Colony Asylum Complex, which was, to a large extent one of the architectural pioneers of this type of 'villa colony' asylum architecture in Britain and Ireland. (Notes on Asylum Architecture) The churches therefore have group value both with each other and with the nearby listed hospital buildings which continue to operate today (HB25/15/009 A-H and J). They enjoy a secluded setting on 'Scoot' hill overlooking the rest of the complex.

General Comments

Date of Survey

19 July 2011