Details
SE 02 SE
679-/7/10255
HALIFAX
FREE SCHOOL LANE
(North side)
Royal Halifax Infirmary blocks 01,02,03,04,05,08,10,20,22,35,38
GV
II
Hospital. 1892-96, by Worthington & Elgood of Manchester. Mid C20 alterations and additions. Rockfaced stone with ashlar dressings and gabled and hipped slate roofs. Renaissance Revival style. The front buildings have most architectural features, including plinth, string courses, and shouldered and pedimented coped gables. Windows are mainly casements with chamfered ashlar surrounds, mullions and transoms. Symmetrical plan, with central axis comprising administration block, admission buildings, central hall and kitchen, flanked by wards lying parallel to the main axis and linked by a cross corridor. The end wards are paired, with the rear ward in each pair extending to the rear, beyond the corridor. Administration block, 2 storeys plus attics and garrets, 7 windows, arranged 2:3:2. 4 coped side wall stacks. Slightly recessed centre flanked by gabled wings. Central round arched portico with parapet and finials, covering panelled double doors. On each side, a 3-light window. Above, 3 cross-mullioned windows, and above again, 3 large gabled dormers, each containing a cross-mullioned window and a smaller window above it. Side wings have cross-mullioned windows, 4 lights, on the lower floors. Above, smaller 3-light windows. Attics have a hipped bay window, 2 lights, flanked by single lights. Returns have a square single storey projection with parapet and flat roof, and a 4-light window. To its left, a slightly projecting gable, to its right, an external stack. Admission buildings, single storey, have hipped roofs. To left, a hipped glazed porte-cochere to the main entrance. Central hall, quadrangular plan, 2 and 3 storeys, has coped ridge stacks. Kitchen, to rear, has large stack and clerestory roof. Wards and cross corridor, single storey, have round arched arcaded basements, the openings now mainly glazed or blocked. The 4 wards towards the front have cruciform end pavilions. Each has a projecting central bay with a pedimented gable and a canted oriel window, 4 lights. Basements have 2 openings, some with Diocletian windows. Above, 2 transomed windows. Side elevations have 10 similar windows. On the left side of the left block in each pair, a cast iron balcony on columns, now glazed. At the end of each ward, adjoining the corridor, a slightly projecting block, 4 windows, with hipped roof. The wards beyond the corridor have similar blocks, and their far ends are plain. The cross corridor arcade varies with the slope of the site, downwards from left to right. Windows are wooden cross casements. Beyond the corridor, to left, 2 operating theatres, single storey plus basement, with hipped roofs and ventilation cowls. Interior: administration block has a central lobby with glazed screen and doors and panelled cross-beam ceiling on Doric columns. Flanking the entrance, a board room and library with cornices and doorcases with entablatures. At each end of the lobby, plain wooden open-well stairs. At the rear, a corridor flanked by angled windows with stained glass depicting commerce and industry, dated 1896. Central hall, 2 storeys, has a wooden balcony on all sides, and a hipped skylight. Cross corridor has an elliptical vault. (Thomas Worthington, Victorian Architecture and Social Purpose: Anthony J Pass: Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society: 1988). Central hall, 2 storeys, has a wooden balcony on all sides, and a hipped skylight. Cross corridor has an elliptical vault. (Thomas Worthington, Victorian Architecture and Social Purpose: Anthony J Pass: Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society: 1988).
Listing NGR: SE0900024104
