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Summary

Description

Thomas Graham Abercrombie, 1909 and 1914. Former asylum site consisting of several buildings including a lodge, administration building, wards, former nurses' home, villas and associated service buildings, all in an Edwardian Baroque style. The buildings are situated in a wooded, semi-rural site close to a main road. All the buildings are of red sandstone with ashlar margins and the majority have base courses. There are raised margins around many of the windows. There is a variety of windows including some multi-pane timber sash and case and some non-traditional windows and many of the dormers are flat-roofed. The roofs are all in grey slate with cast-iron rainwater goods, and several of the buildings have distinctive decorative roof ventilators and tall slim coped stacks.

ADMINISTRATION BUILDING AND WARDS 16, 17, 19 AND 20 (NS 49824 61626): 1909. 2 storey and attic, 9-bay symmetrical building at the centre of the site with single-storey splayed-plan wards to east and west, forming approximate butterfly-plan complex. The entrance elevation to the south has a rusticated doorpiece with broken segmental-arched pediment and there is a dentilled cornice. There are 5-bays to the centre with flanking advanced pyramid-roofed stair case pavilions, and end bays have canted window bays and pediments. The ward wing to east has a canted entrance bay with decorative roof ventilator above. There are some later 20th century flat-roofed extensions. Part of the interior was seen in 2013. The buildings are all internally linked. There are some decorative features including timber panelling, fire surrounds and some cornicing.

FORMER NURSES' HOME (NS 50044 61403): 1914. 2-storey and attic, 9-bay symmetrical former nurses' home (now offices, 2013) with central Ionic pilastered doorpiece at entrance and gabled end bays to the north elevation. There is a central 2-storey canted window bay to the south elevation. Most of the dormers are flat-roofed.

WARDS 11, 12 AND VILLAS 20 AND 22 (NS 49953 61469, NS 49989 61368, NS 49741 61782 and NS 49649 61583): these four buildings are similar in design, with Ward 11, Villas 20 and 22 dating from 1909 and Ward 12 dating from 1914. 2-storey and attic, 8-bay former wards with projecting 2-bay outer gables on entrance elevations with a linking verandah. There is a projecting gabled bay at the rear with round-arched window to the upper storey. Some of the windows have segmental-arched cornices. Villas 20 and 22 lie to the far west of the site and are in a poor condition.

WARD 15 (NS 49935 61601): 1909. 2-storey and attic, 9-bay asymmetrical former ward (now offices, 2013) with advanced gabled end bays with linking verandah. Pedimented dormers.

WARD 14 (NS 49981 61574): 12 bay, largely symmetrical office building with 2-storey, gabled entrance bay, square-plan, pyramidal-roofed bay immediately to the east, long, single storey wings extending to east and west and advanced gabled end bays. There is a dentilled corbelled cornice over the entrance.

FORMER STATION AND STORES (NS 49838 61669): three, 2-storey, gabled ranges with additional single-storey buildings, forming an approximately rectangular plan complex with an open canopy over road to north. This canopy originally covered the railway. Two of the ranges face east with the third range to the west and orientated north to south. The east elevation has three large, round-arched windows. The south elevation has a pair of round-arched windows. The interior was partially seen in 2013 and there is a timber and glass partition with small pane glazing to the upper section and timber and glass door to the ground.

WORKSHOPS AND LAUNDRY (NS 49814 61715 and NS 49857 61696): single storey row of workshops with low wall and metal railings to south and with gabled laundry range to east with tall, brick stack. Gabled single-storey former mortuary to far west with decorative skewputts and deep set windows. Laundry with corrugated iron roof.

LODGE (NS 50105 61515): dated 1908. Single-storey and attic, largely square-plan lodge with advanced gable to north with canted bay window and with prominent central chimney stack.

GATES, GATEPIERS AND QUADRANT WALLS (NS 50119 61528): square-plan gatepiers flanking driveway with round-arched pedestrian gate to south. Each pier is topped by an urn and there is a quadrant wall to the south with some metal railings.

Statement of Special Interest

Dykebar Hospital was opened in 1909 and is by one of Paisley's most prolific and renowned architects, Thomas Graham Abercrombie. It is one of only three asylums to be built in Scotland which adopted the advanced 'village' philosophy of care for the mentally ill and is the most complete designed by a single architect. The hospital was built in an Edwardian Baroque style and the majority of the buildings have some features of this style. The central administration building combines many elements of the style and is the most prominent building on the site. Dykebar is especially notable for retaining all but one of its original buildings (one villa has been demolished) and this enhances our understanding of the development of care for the mentally ill at the beginning of the 20th century.

Initially, the complex consisted of an administration block with two radiating hospital wings, two male and two female villas (or wards) a reception house, a lodge and medical superintendent's house, as well as associated service areas. In 1914, the site was expanded with a nurses' home and two further villas, all designed by Abercrombie. There was initially a railway into the site, and the former station survives, including the canopy. The railway line has been replaced by a road.

Towards the end of the First World War the hospital was requisitioned by the military for use as a military hospital. During the Second World War Dykebar received patients from Stirling District Asylum at Bellsdyke and the Smithston Institution at Greenock, which had been requisitioned.

One of the 1914 villas has been demolished, but all the other original buildings remain and the site retains much of its character, with few additions or extensions to the original buildings. This lack of additions is unusual in a working hospital. The retention of the former service areas is of particular interest as these buildings are often demolished or altered in a working hospital. The buildings are currently mainly used as offices and administration, with some buildings not in use (2013).

The village system of patient care, exemplified by the 1870s Alt-Scherbitz hospital near Leipzig in Germany, encouraged psychiatric patients to be cared for within their own community setting, where there were few physical restrictions and where village self-sufficiency was encouraged. The complete plan-form is the outward expression of the changing attitude in the care of mental patients and may, as Harriet Richardson says, be the 'highlight of Scottish Asylum design'(2003).

Mid Dykebar was not considered of special architectural or historic interest at the time of the listing review (2013-14).

Statutory address changed and listed building record updated in 2014. Previously listed as 'Dykebar Hospital excluding Modern Additions'.

References

Bibliography

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