The hospital, begun in 1813, was designed by William Stark, who was described by the great Sir Walter Scott as “a young man of exquisite taste who must rise very high in his profession if bad health does not keep him down or cut him short”. Alas, Stark died that very year, prompting Scott to lament that, with him, “more genius has died than is left among the collected universality of Scottish architects”.

I first went to look at the hospital 12 years ago with Kit Martin, the rescuer of ailing country houses, when he had started looking at large institutional buildings for the Prince of Wales’s Phoenix Trust. Martin did an outline scheme showing how all the hospital buildings could be converted for residential use. He recalls: “All the wings were eminently convertible and the economics stacked up.”

Department of Health officials insisted that they had other plans and said the scheme should not be pursued. The predictable result was that the buildings decayed and only the crescent and two small wings have survived.

A website on hospitals, www.ukasylums.org.uk/images.asp, compiled by Gordon Tozer, has details of its history, including old photographs of nurses in starched whites in front of the crescent. The hospital closed in 1988.

Redrow has created 79 apartments, retaining the original sash windows with the unusual cast-iron glazing bars. The cast-iron roof trusses and roof tiles have also been kept, and the vaulted ceilings in the basements have extensive cellars under the pavements.

The main feature inside is a splendid cantilever stair with stone sets projecting from the walls unsupported from below. Onebedroom apartments are available from £129,995, two-bedrooms from £144,995 and three-bedrooms from £235,995.

The one problem of living in a crescent is that the side walls are rarely parallel, a problem when fitting out kitchens, but so far, says Trevor Wright, of Redrow, everyone is enjoying the challenge.

Horton Road, Gloucester, 0845 6760345

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