Details
1846/0/10009
08-AUG-03
WOBURN
LEIGHTON STREET
Marylands, former Woburn Cottage Hospital including former Isolation Block and Mortuary to North
GV
II
Former Cottage Hospital, now residential college. 1901-03 with minor later-C20 alterations. Henry Percy Adams F.R.I.B.A. designs based on sketch plan by Duchess of Bedford, for the 11th Duke of Bedford. Rendered brick walls with deep sloping hipped tiled roofs, timber verandahs and windows. 2-storey main range with rear services wing; separate 2-storey isolation block and single storey mortuary. Arts and Crafts style.
EXTERIOR: SOUTH elevation with long front range under deep sloping hipped roof with four deep chimneys in front roof slope. To centre, 3 advanced gables, those to outsides are rendered with corner buttresses, 4-light casements to gable and wide ground floor bow windows, to centre entrance gable with decorative bargeboards, vertical timber pegged studs, pair of casements to gable over Bedford arms plaque dated 1903 and with motto CHE SARA SARA, and ground floor porch with moulded Tudor arch to recessed entry also with timber framing. To both sides, 2 window bays with 3 lights to first floor over taller ground floor windows. To both ends, single storey verandah with slender wooden posts advanced and wrapping corners with central single window bay cutting through eaves and polygonal sunroom with glazed leaded panes and hipped roof (verandah to left has lost the side bays) to rear at side. NORTH elevation has 2-storey range to centre with pair of chimneystacks and wide dormer sloping steeply single storey link, then taller kitchen range with hipped roof, large ridge stack and gable to each side with tall leaded lights with hoppers, culminating in lower hipped roof that projects to each side again with lower hipped roof. Tall stair window to east. Rain water hoods with 'B' script. Late-C20 extension to rear (replacing former toilet block) not of interest.
INTERIOR: Entrance vestibule has leaded lights leading to spine corridor with deep moulded cornices. Offices line the front, those to each side of entrance have fireplaces in Arts and Crafts style with delicate classical wood surrounds and central niche above yellow tiles (one painted) and studded metal details. To each end, a large room (the former wards) with wide barrel-vaulted ceiling and sun porch. Arcade to central hall with wide semi-circular fireplace to rear wall with yellow tiles and central small studded metal fireplace surround. Open well stair with teak heavy square plan newels and diagonally set stick balusters. Rear range with former 2-storey operating room now modern kitchen. Wooden fireplace and secondary teak stair with ball capped newels and flat balusters. Upper floors have fitted cupboards, internal doors, porcelain sinks. Built-in storage platform to both ends in hipped roof space.
ISOLATION BLOCK TO NORTH: Square plan range with deep pyramidal hipped roof and central chimney matching main range. South elevation has 2 tall cross frame windows to each floor, those to upper storeys canted and cut through the eaves. To east, advanced and ashlar lined entrance porch with arch to each side. Former ambulance entrance now with wide C20 door. Interior has teak stair with ball-capped newels, and wide 4-panelled doors like in main range.
MORTUARY TO NORTH: Single storey range has gabled porch with C20 door and 3 small pane casements to right.
HISTORY: Opened 22 May 1903. Mary, wife of the 11th Duke of Bedford, known as the 'Flying Duchess', sketched a floor plan of the site, showing careful attention to the provision of fresh air and light and quality accommodation for patients, nurses and staff. Used as part of the Military Hospital at Woburn Abbey during World War I, when the Duchess worked as a nurse, and then by the Political Intelligence Department in 1939 and as a document printing centre. World War II air raid shelter to the west of the main range.
SOURCES: English Hospitals 1660-1948: A Survey of their Architecture and Design. Ed. Harriet Richardson. RCHME, 1998.
The Building Review, 1902
BMJ 20 June 1908, p.1477
NMR report NBR No.100228
One of the best preserved early-C20 cottage hospitals, opened in 1903 with a separate isolation block and mortuary, in an impressive and intact Arts and Crafts style building designed to a sketch plan by the Duchess of Bedford, translated by important hospital architect H. Percy Adams.
