Middlewood Park Conservation Area is situated in the centre of the Middlewood housing estate approximately 3.5 miles north west of the City Centre, and is part of the former Middlewood Hospital site, a Victorian asylum which dated back to the 1870s.
The Conservation Area has very few buildings within it and is characterised by a parkland design with protected woodland to the west. Unsympathetically designed modern housing borders the park on all sides.
The special interest that justifies the designation of the Conservation Area includes the following:
- open space of former Middlewood Hospital, a grand Victorian asylum complex from the 1870s, now mostly demolished
- Grade II listed Middlewood Church
- Grade II listed lodge building including railings and gate piers to former hospital
- former administration block including clock tower, a significant unlisted character building on the site
- tree lined avenue linking administration block with mature vegetation and offering wildlife habitats
- close to the western border of the Conservation Area is Wadsley Fossil Forest, a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), a nationally important site where fossilised tree stumps can be seen in situ
- not part of the Conservation Area but part of the original hospital site, the Grade II listed Kingswood Building a former ward dating from 1878
Date of designation
Middlewood Park Conservation Area was designated on 17 September 2001.