Details
SD 53 SW FULWOOD WATLING STREET ROAD
7/34 Preston District Health
Authority Headquarters
II
Preston Union Workhouse (latterly known as the Civic Hostel) subsequently
old people's home, now offices. 1865-68, by Leigh Hall of Bolton. Red
brick with plinth and dressings of Longridge sandstone, slate roof with
ridge chimneys. T-plan: main range c.150 metres long, on east-west axis,
with 14-bay rear wing to the centre. Main range is 3 storeys with cellars,
symmetrical, in Italianate style, composed of a 3-bay entrance block
crowned with a clock tower, 14-bay ranges each side ending with 7-bay wing
pavilions. The centre and wings break forward slightly, have rusticated
quoins, moulded stone consoles supporting prominent cornices and low
parapets, and their outer bays are marked by mansard roofs. Ridge chimney
stacks. The entrance block, which carries in the centre a tall square
clock tower with arched 2-light openings, clock faces above the cornice,
and a 4-sided domed roof surmounted by decorative railings and a
weathervane, has at ground floor a recessed central doorway flanked by
set-in columns of polished granite, framed in a massive sandstone
architrave with banded rustication at the sides and a deep entablature
arched in the centre over a semi-circular tympanum displaying a wreath and
ribbon lettered respectively "PP" and "PRESTON CIVIC HOSTEL"; 2 tripartite
windows at ground floor and 3 on each floor above, all with stone
architraves, and that over the door with a segmental pediment. The outer
bays of the wings are treated in matching style; elsewhere the ground floor
is treated as an arcade, all openings in round-headed recesses with
keystones and linking impost bands, a door in the centre of each side range
and wing, and the windows round-headed sashes with radiating glazing bars
in the heads; the upper floors have stone sillbands, and sashed windows
with glazing bars and gauged brick heads with keystones, except those in
the centre of the wings which have stone architraves. Return walls of
wings have round-headed windows, mostly blind, with imposts and keystones,
and attached iron fire escapes; rear treatment is much plainer, but windows
have gauged segmental heads. Rear wing is lower, the first 7 bays 2
storeys, the rest a 7-bay full height dining hall doubling as a chapel.
History: building delayed 30 years after formation of Union, by local
political opposition; foundation and opening both performed by Thomas Batty
Addison, the leading Preston proponent of the New Poor Law since its
inception; main object of architect was "to make the classification of the
inmates as perfect as possible" (females to west, males to east, children
of each sex in corresponding wing). Rear exercise yards, plunge baths,
wash-houses for females (etc) subsequently demolished. Cost estimated as
£30,000 exceeded £50,000: local ratepayers critical of architectural
extravagance. Reference: Anthony Hewitson History of Preston 1883; Preston
Guardian 2.1.1868.
Listing NGR: SD5397731648
