Details
PLYMOUTH
SX4654NE HIGH STREET, Stonehouse
740-1/56/821 (North side)
01/05/75 Former Royal Naval Hospital: The
Quadrangle Centre
(Formerly Listed as:
HIGH STREET, Stonehouse
Royal Naval Hospital: Trafalgar
Central Admin. Block & Connected
Wards)
GV II*
Includes: The Quadrangle Centre: Evans, Hornby, Dudding, Pryn
and Norbury Court CRAIGIE DRIVE Stonehouse.
Includes: The Quadrangle Centre: Creykes, Gordon, Fellowes,
Lyster and Sandon Court CRAIGIE DRIVE Stonehouse.
Central administration block and ward blocks all linked by
connecting open passages at former Naval Hospital; now houses.
1758-1762 by Alexander Rovehead, probably with William
Robinson as consultant architect, for the Navy Board.
Converted for housing mid 1990s.
MATERIALS: Plymouth limestone rubble with limestone dressings
including rusticated quoins, bands above ground floor,
1st-floor strings and plain architraves; concrete tile hipped
roofs (2 parallel roofs per block) behind coped rubble
parapets over bands; truncated lateral stacks (visible in roof
space).
PLAN: 10 semi-detached ward blocks arranged around a courtyard
opening to the west; blocks to N and S sides each separated by
2 smaller blocks with subsidiary functions, with central E
block for the chapel, dispensary and some staff accommodation;
connected by a Tuscan colonnade to inner side of courtyard.
EXTERIOR: 3 storeys and single-storey passages, some of which
are heightened to 2 storeys. Central block is a symmetrical
1:3:1-bay front at both front and rear, the central bays are
broken forward surmounted by a pediment with oculus and over
the roof there is a lead-roofed cupola with open round-arched
arcade. The outer elevation has mullioned windows to the
central section, tall Venetian windows to the 1st floor and
low Venetian windows to the ground floor flanking a doorway
with sidelights in similar style. Most of the windows have old
hornless or later horned sashes with glazing bars. Courtyard
front has central pediment tripartite lunette over tripartite
window over round-arched tripartite window. Other blocks
similar but simpler, without the breaks, pediments, lunettes
and Venetian windows; one to north of west entrance left as a
ruin following bomb damage in World War II, another to the
north demolished. The colonnade has granite Tuscan columns,
partly infilled with C20 glazing and early C20 upper floors.
INTERIOR: the block inspected has, typically, a cantilevered
granite staircase, teak floors to wards and pine floors to
attics with original king-post roof structure.
HISTORY: the plan, with detached blocks arranged around a
central courtyard, was designed to prevent the spread of
infection. 1200 patients were housed in 60 wards, placed
either side of a spine wall in the ward blocks. It was much
praised in the C18 (being illustrated and described in John
Howard's, The State of the Prisons in England and Wales, 1784)
and it influenced French hospital planning following the visit
by Coulomb and Tenon in 1787. French hospital plans were in
turn adapted as the pavilion plan and advocated by Florence
Nightingale from the mid C19. The ward quadrangle forms the
centrepiece of an extensive example of Neo-Classical
institutional planning, the axis continuing through the
officers' houses arranged around the Square to the east (qv).
This is a complex of outstanding historical significance in
the development of institutions for the care of the sick,
which forms the principal part of a remarkable and complete
military hospital complex.
(The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Devon: London: 1989-:
654 & 655; Journal of Royal Medical Service: Gordon Pugh, P D,
Surg. Capt. Royal Navy: History of the Royal Naval Hospital
Plymouth: 1972-; Morrison K: Royal Naval Hospital, Stonehouse:
Cambridge: 1992-: 100373).
Listing NGR: SX4659354661
