Hospital at Britannia Royal Naval College

Details

DARTMOUTH

SX8751 COLLEGE WAY 673-1/5/91 (North side) Hospital at Britannia Royal Naval College

GV II

Sanatorium to the Britannia Royal Naval College. 1899-1905 by Sir Aston Webb, who later built the main college (qv). Flemish-bond brick with Portland stone dressings; stacks with stone-banded shafts, some connected with a round-headed recess between; slate roofs. Free Palladian style to the ward blocks, administration block and doctor's house with some Regency detail. PLAN: 3 parallel detached isolation ward wings, connected by covered corridors, one with a water tower at the end. A fourth parallel block, slightly north of the others, is the administrative wing, with former doctor's house at right angles at the south end. EXTERIOR: The ward wings have austere south-east fronts, designed to provide balconies for convalescent patients. Each wing has a 3-window front, the ground floor high above ground level because of the slope of the land. Centre bay broken forward with a pedimented gable and pierced at ground- and first-floor level to give 2 tiers of recessed balconies: the upper balcony has a moulded round-headed stone arch, springing from the parapet; the lower balcony is divided into 3 bays by square-section stone piers with moulded capitals and bases and matching responds. Upper balcony has a small-pane segmental-headed timber window to the ward; lower balcony a square-headed window. The outer bays are short projections (probably containing stairs), roofed at right angles; first-floor oculi with keyblocks; ground-floor windows tucked into open recesses flanking the ground-floor balcony. 9-bay return walls with deep boarded eaves; small-pane timber sashes, some with transoms; chimney shafts with convex shoulders. The ward wings are linked by colonnades between them at the north-west ends, with substantial cast-iron columns with moulded bases and capitals. One of the corridors has a first-floor glazed corridor above. Slender Venetian water tower has a peaked lead roof with eaves brackets, clasping pilasters with bands of stone, and unornamented except for 3 tiers of narrow windows on the north-west side and 3 stone slit windows on each side at the top, below the cornice. The administration block has a symmetrical 3:1:3-bay front with deep eaves with a moulded eaves cornice with brackets. 2-storey bows to left and right, central porch formed by a flat roof on Tuscan columns between the bows. Round-headed doorway flanked by side lights. Windows mostly original timber small-pane sashes, with some replacements. The doctor's house has a similar treatment to the south-east front but with canted bays to left and right. INTERIOR: Not inspected but likely to be of interest. Pevsner mentions a chapel and a 1908 bronze bust of George V, when Prince of Wales, by Hamo Thorneycroft. HISTORY: This is an impressive design and seems likely to have been influenced by the remarkable 1787 Royal Naval Hospital in Stonehouse, Plymouth, by Alexander Rowehead, the earliest example in Europe of a hospital on a pavilion plan where the ward blocks are separated by colonnades to avoid the spread of disease. In 1863 The Admiralty stationed HMS Britannia in the Dart as a training ship for naval cadets. In 1865 she was joined by HMS Hindustan. By 1875 it was decided to build a land-based college at Dartmouth but the land was not acquired until 1896. Work began on the terraces for the main building in 1898 but, when 2 cadets died of influenza on the Britannia, the sanatorium was built before the rest of the college. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner, Nikolaus: Devon: London: 1989-: P.325; Freeman, Ray: Dartmouth and its Neighbours: Phillimore: 1990-: P.156-8/P.177-8).

Listing NGR: SX8715251705

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

387217

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Freeman, R, Dartmouth and its Neighbours, (1990), 156-8
Freeman, R, Dartmouth and its Neighbours, (1990), 177-8
Pevsner, N, Cherry, B, The Buildings of England: Devon, (1989), 325

End of official list entry

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