Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 16/07/2018

SK 60 NW
718/15/10052

LEICESTER
GIPSY LANE (South west side)
Former Towers Hospital

(Formerly listed as Towers Hospital, Blocks 29, 30, 36, 37, 38, 39, 49 and 41)

GV
II

Former psychiatric hospital. 1869-70, by EL Stephens, Borough Surveyor, as the Leicester Borough Asylum. Built by Osborne Bros. Institutional alterations and additions 1960s and 1970s.

Red brick with ashlar dressings to main fronts and blue brick dressings to the remainder. Steep pitched plain tile roofs with decorative ridge tiles and shaped coped gables. Various side wall and ridge stacks.

Jacobean Revival style. Single unit, cruciform plan with cross wings. Central range has a projecting centre forming the medical superintendent's house and service rooms, linked by corridor to chapel and staff rooms at the rear. On either side, gallery wards, two storeys plus attics. Cross wings of similar wards have projecting end bays containing day rooms. On the outer side of each wing, a square staircase tower topped with an octagonal spire. Centrepiece, three storeys, three bays, has a projecting tower porch with machiolated eaves. Square leaded dome topped with a wind vane, and flanked by shaped gables each with a roundel. Steps up to a segment arched doorway with clustered columns and overlight. Renewed double doors. Above, a canted oriel window, two storeys, with cross-mullioned windows. Above again, two narrow lights. Side bays have canted cross-mullioned bay windows, two storeys, with balustrades. Above, cross mullioned windows under shaped gables.

Ward ranges, seven bays, have similar cross-mullioned windows. Slightly projecting centre, three bays, with shaped gables. Central square bay window, three storeys, late C20. Attic windows under half-hipped dormers. End bays have a canted two storey bay window, five lights. Above, a cross mullioned window under a shaped gable. Window to left is renewed. Returns have similar fenestration, with gabled and half-hipped dormers. Staircase towers, three storeys, have three-light pointed arched windows on the upper floor. Rear elevations have various pointed arched openings, and gabled and half-hipped bays and dormers. Central rear range, including chapel, is double depth, two storeys, five bays. Three prominent side wall stacks. Central doorway flanked by two windows. Above, five two-light pointed arched windows to the chapel, with shafts and hood moulds. Double gabled returns have two four-light pointed arched windows.

Interior: entrance corridor has an ashlar dogleg staircase, altered late C20. Chapel corridor has two moulded shouldered doorways with hood moulds and foliage roundels. Chapel has a simpler segmental pointed door. Interior has stained glass windows with sill band and hood moulds. Arch braced hammer beam roof on corbels. C19 wooden pulpit, other fittings renewed.

Listing NGR: SK6160106163

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Towers Hospital Blocks 29, 30, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, And 41 at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q26657329

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of History Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)