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Here are some photographs of the new Springfield Park
I'm told this is the first substantial new London park since Stratford and the Olympics in 2012.
It's been YEARS in the planning, with countless proposals, enquiries, knockbacks,
(Indeed there's currently another dispute about the next tranche of flats and houses)
And quite a number of years of building
Here is an aerial photo showing work on the Park in 2020?
The park appears to be the price the developers had to bear to get permission to build on the site
Of course the park also greatly enhances the value of the flats and houses they've built
They inherited a complex site called Springfield Hospital ["Mental Hospital"?], with specialist buildings built not quite willy nilly over what was once a [97? 99?] acre site between what is now Beechcroft Road, Burntwood Lane (and Garratt Green, once an extension in effect of Wandsworth Common), and Garratt Lane, though this site was
The site was limited initially by the Streatham boundary, but in [1860s?] the grounds were enlarged
[To the southwest, Streatham Cemetery was opened in [1890s?] but this was never part of the Asylum grounds.]
Other chunks taken out include buildings [for hospital accommodation]
In the 1950s Garratt Green School [now Burntwood School] - opened 1958?
Going back a little in time, here it is in 19???
[POSTCARD VIEW - WHOLE-CLOSER-UP]
Notice down here a substantial farm - Springfield Farm
Once upon a time this is where there was a [major house - exactly where - built by owned by
Perkins
Brewer
Bought the land from Earl Spencer in ?? [1ยง830s??]
And sold it within a few years
to Surrey Magistrates for the building of the Surrey Lunatic Asylum in ???
Perkins, already a rich man but now very much richer, moved to Dover?
See e.g.
1836-08-25-spencer-lodge-henry-wilkins-springfield-henry-perkins-enhanced.jpg
According to the Tithe map of c1840, Springfield House and farm were on the edge of Garratt Green
TITHE MAPS
I don't know what his house looked like, but we do know a few things about the farm
e.g. here's the Ice House
It was restored in ??
This was a pre-condition for the developer who waas reconstructing Garratt Green School / Burntwood School in ????
And photos of the farm in the 19???s
When the farm closed down in the early 1950s?
The closest pigs to Piccadilly . . .
And this is when the girls' school was built by the LCC
Another development was the result of (? a bomb ) in WWII
The council estate . . . . on the edge of Garratt Green
And
__________
So why such an enormous site?
Why here?
What was built first?
[and later?])
Whay did the original buildings look like?
If you're to believe the developers
A charming Dickensian scene
. . .
It was certainly a lot smaller than the main building is today
It had no wings left and right [built 187??]
When you look at this what do you see?
If you didn't know what the topic of tonight's talk was, what would you say ?
It looks to me like a stately home
[{I think I've seen contemporary references to the desirability of just such an ambience? Browne quoted in Scull?]
Or a an Oxford College in the Tudor style
Or a mini Hampton Court
Notice for example the use of red brick with stone dressing
The diapering
When it was first built the reference to Hampton Court was even more pronounced / emphatic because it had zig-zag [corbelled] chimneys
{But these were taken down [iwhen?] because they proved so vulnerable in high winds]
But it's also designed as a very modern building
Notice the pride with which its date is announced in ?-feet high numbers on the facade above the main entrance.
It is maddeningly frustrating but there are (so far as I know) very very few images of the Asylum
Here are [some?] from Hugh Welch Diamond in the 1850s - we'll be coming back to him later
Scull very good on the hostility towards central state control/management in favour of local provision and supervision - esp. in immediate aftermath of the wars with France
But what about the expense?!
What can explain the colossal expense and effort of acquiring 97 acres, plus competitions among architects (with prizes or premiums for best losers), construction over several years, fitting out the buildings with water, gas lighting [?], central heating etc?
Why such a beautiful setting?
What could possibly justify such a lavish investment in poor people, who may have had little experience of comfort or beauty in their own lives so far.
Why so many great-and-good active as Commissioners - essentially the Board of management?
So many questions.
Work as therapy as well as self-sufficiency or containment
Restraint and hierarchy of wards etc
Water treatment
Daniel Dolley
Distractions of the view [nb the ha-has concealing walls], the outdoors, walking in the gardens
Humour ? Pleasure? Play? Music? Dancing? Theatre?
? being let out supervised?
Diamond's photographs
Women photographed - in the cause of science - but also as pleasure? therapy?
You may associate madness in the C218 and e. C19 Hogartrth with Bedlam - as seen in Hogarth's painting - the final stage of the Rake's Progress.
[He's violently deranged, surrounded by fantasists, and ogled by paying fashionable visitors [whose payments helped to find the place).
This is the opposite
Secluded but private
In grat space where you can enjoy the views and light and air and fresh water
An asylum
A place you have the opportunity to work at any of a great variety of tasks
LIST
Not obviously confined and crowded
Away from the frenzied street life of London
This is part of a general movement at the time - the 1830s onwars to build big institutions
Partly benevolent, partly for the good of the the individual / partly for the good of society / partly oppressive
Workhouse
Prison
And the Surrey Pauper Lunatic Asylum
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