Former Royal Naval Hospital the Quadrangle Centre

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

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

473512

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Morrison, K, Royal Naval Hospital Stonehouse, (1992), 100373
Pevsner, N, Cherry, B, The Buildings of England: Devon, (1989), 654-655
Pugh, G, Journal of Royal Medical Service in History of the Royal Naval Hospital Plymouth, (1972)

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