|
Designed by the architect G.T.
Hine, who also designed several other famous asylums, Cherry Knowle was
built over the first fives years of the 1890s. It was originally called
the Sunderland Borough Asylum but then later renamed Cherry Knowle
Psychiatric Hospital. Most asylums of this period were constructed in
secluded locations away from urban conurbations and Cherry Knowle is no
exception. Ryhope is the nearest village to the asylum and it is only the
unremitting spread of housing over the years that has slowly brought the
asylum as close as it is now to modern housing. When originally
constructed a railway was run in to facilitate the movement of building
materials and it's location overlooking the north sea must have given
amazing views from the airing courts, gardens and ward windows on the
eastern face of the buildings. The asylum is a prime example of the compact arrow echelon plan where wards are stepped out from the central services. Before demolition began there were six wards on either side of a combined chapel and recreation hall and the other service areas. There is also an isolation hospital and infirmary block at the moment, which were added in 1902, though how much longer any of the hospital will remain standing remains to be seen as the wrecking crews are in there and moving at an incredible rate. This year (2011) has seen the asylum lose all it's frontage including the admin block with it's beautiful gothic tower, and at the time of our visit (August 2011) most of the flooring had been lifted in both the chapel and the theatre below it. Some of the ward blocks are still largely intact though I am guessing that it is only the presence of large quantities of asbestos which is slowing down the demo team. We were deeply saddened to find a room where some of the patients old oil paintings, completed in Occupational Therapy, had been stashed. The damp which riddles the building now has warped the hardboard "canvases" the paintings have been done on so they are all very badly warped and twisted. Perhaps I am being overly sentimental here, and without doubt many of the paintings are little more than messy daubs, but some are very interesting, and without a doubt all have merit in so much as they are the artistic expression of individual minds. As such I would rather have seen these paintings archived for posterity instead of being effectively destined for land fill or fire wood.
So... Cherry Knowle is one of the last of the truly great Victorian asylums left standing at this moment in time - and at the rate the wrecking crew are working then very soon it will be no more. It's sad to see these magnificent buildings ground into the soil but I suppose they are of little use to the community any longer other than as another hospital or the like. But there is already a modern hospital standing at the opposite end of the grounds to Cherry Knowle, so other than as a prison I fail to see what else it could ever be used for now. Time and the tide of progress must inevitably avail.
|
