Bootham Park – York

Enterprise Retirement Living
York

Bowman Riley has been providing masterplanning and architecture on the re-purposing of Bootham Park, a series of historic listed buildings with extensive open grounds in York into a new retirement community.

Our brief was to create a cohesive development of 120 homes across the site. During the design process, it became apparent that we needed additional apartments for the scheme’s financial viability. We worked closely with Historic England to produce the masterplan with the sympathetic renovation of the heritage buildings to create engaging and appropriate designs for the new build elements resulting in a 172-unit residential care community with substantial public benefits.

Central to the project’s success in conservation terms is the renovation of the 18th-century Grade I listed landmark designed by acclaimed architect John Carr. The site also includes four Grade II listed heritage assets built in the 19th and early 20th centuries, which will be repurposed to host the communal facilities of the new community. Four complementary new wings will accommodate the new homes.

Built as a lunatic asylum in 1777, Bootham Park became a psychiatric hospital in 1904 before closing in 2015. In addition to the site’s iconic architecture, its historic significance is that Bootham Park has provided continuous care since its construction, recognising its contribution to society. The redevelopment of the site into a retirement community was granted planning consent in 2023 and classed as C2 use class, the provision of care in a residential setting, which is a first for City of York Council.

The public benefits of the redeveloped site weigh in favour of the scheme, as does the enhancement of the existing landscape regarding its recreational value and provision of public access, including sports facilities to Bootham School and a hospital helipad.

The redevelopment will bring this critical York brownfield site back into viable reuse as a beautiful and functional retirement community, with onsite care 24/hours a day and extensive grounds accessible to the public.

Kerry Babbington, Historic England, praised our “thoughtful approach” and lauded our “retention of the open nature of the site and creation of formalised rights of public access”.

See our other project for Enterprise Retirement Living, The Red House.

See our other Heritage projects.

See more of our retirement communities.