Details
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SO8418NW
844-1/10/192
GLOUCESTER
LONDON ROAD (south side)
United Hospitals
(Formerly Listed as: LONDON ROAD (South side) United Almshouse)
04/08/71
II
Almshouses. 1860-1. By Fulljames and Waller for the Gloucester Municipal Charity Trustees to house the United Hospitals formed after the amalgamation of the St Margaret and St Mary Magdelen and St Kyneburgh Hospitals in 1861.
MATERIALS: red brick with decorative bands and relieving arches in white and blue bricks, dressed stone frames to doorways and windows, plain tile roofs with stone coped gables and gablets with stone kneelers and finials, tall brick ridge stacks and projecting stacks with single or double flues in several patterns.
STYLE: Picturesque Domestic Gothic.
PLAN: long, irregular ranges on three sides of a large rectangular court, a former range on the south side of the court at rear demolished. In approximately the centre of the north side the dominating feature is a large, square tower, with a stair turret projecting from its southern side, and flanked by a cross-gabled range on its western side.
EXTERIOR: one and two storeys with gable-end roofs, and tower of three storeys crowned by a steeply pitched, pyramidal roof with a lucarne on each face. The entrance front facing London Road has a continuous offset plinth with a chamfered stone coping; on the front of the tower and the gable-end wall of the cross range to right at first-floor level, a decorative brick band framing diaper panels below the windows; below the eaves of the tower roof a decorative brick frieze; on the front of the tower a central, two storey, canted bay window with lean-to roof; on each floor of the bay timber-framed casements of three front lights and single sidelights with a trefoiled head to each light; on the third floor on each face of the tower a central, double casement; in the gable-end wall of the cross-gabled range adjoining the tower to right and on both floors are stone-framed, pointed-arched windows with a circular light in the head under a relieving arch of brick voussoirs in alternating blocks of blue and white bricks. To west of the tower is a single-storey range with two two-light windows having details similar to windows in the end of the central cross range with their heads within coped gablets; further left a two-storey tower, its pyramidal roof with a lucarne on each face, on the ground floor a stone-framed doorway with moulded arch in a gablet with finial, and on the first floor a single light window; further left a two storey cross-gabled wall at the north end of the east range, with projecting stack to left and to right, on each floor, a two-light window. To right of the central tower and cross range a single-storey range with a central stone-framed doorway set in a projection with the arch of the doorway raised within a cross gablet, at each end of the range a two-light window with trefoil heads to each light, and brick relieving arches with contrasting bricks set in cross gablets. North gable-end of the west range, to right, has on the ground floor a three-light stone-framed window with Caernarvon arches in the head of each light, and on the second floor a three-light window with trefoil arches in the heads of the lights, and brick relieving arch as described.
The long west range of two storeys, with on the west face a short cross-gabled wing at each end; between the wings are three tall, irregularly spaced chimney-stacks, on the ground floor many two or three-light stone-framed windows and on the first floor similar windows, the taller, two-light windows adjoining stacks, with brick relieving arches set within cross gablets. The east range, also of two storeys, has features and details similar to the west range. Within the courtyard on each side are single-storey verandas, and on the first floors of the east and west ranges are regularly spaced two-light windows, with trefoil-arched lights raised in cross gablets alternating with short two-light windows with flat heads.
INTERIOR: not inspected.
HISTORY: the building was built on the site of the former Leprosy Hospital of St Margaret and St Sepulchure founded prior to 1163.
Listing NGR: SO8417118914
