A Block at North Staffordshire Hospital

Details

SJ84NE
613/4/10043

NEWCASTLE ROAD
A Block at North Staffordshire Hospital

GV
II

Former workhouse school, now hospital wards, offices and service rooms. 1866. By Charles Lynam of Stoke on Trent. Converted to old people's accommodation late C19, and to hospital wards C20. Various later C19 and C20 alterations and minor additions. Red brick with ashlar and blue brick dressings and Welsh slate roofs. Renaissance Revival style.
Symmetrical T-plan, with central administration and staff block flanked by double-range classroom and dormitory blocks. At the rear, a spinal range containing dining room, infants' schoolrooms, dayroom and dining room. Service buildings, mainly single storey, on the south side of the spinal range.
Front range, 2 and 3 storeys plus basements, 9/3/9 bays, has plinth, sill band, buttresses between bays, and shouldered coped gables. Windows to this range are mainly stone cross-mullioned, many with their original margin-pane glazing. Projecting centre piece has a moulded Tudor arched entrance with glazed screens and double doors. Above, a sculpted coat of arms, flanked by cross casements, and above again, a 4-light window. Side bays have canted 2-storey bay windows, and above, 4-light windows with single lights in the gables above. Flanking ranges have regular fenestration with minor variations reflecting the' original uses of the rooms. Ground floor windows have blue brick relieving arches. Right range has in the eighth bay a square flat roofed porch, c1940, altered to a bay window. Double gabled returns have external stacks and similar fenestration to the main front. At the rear of the side ranges, former cloisters divided by buttresses, with Tudor arched openings and blue brick heads, now infilled and fitted with plain sashes. Above, in each bay, 12/12 glazing bar sashes.
At the junction of the centrepiece with the spinal range, semicircular corner stair turrets with 12/12 glazing bar sashes on the lower floors, and corbelled projections above, with small glazing bar windows. Spinal range, 2 storeys plus basements, 5 bays, is linked to centrepiece by a single-bay corridor, 2 storeys. Openings, divided by buttresses, are blocked and modified on basement and ground floor levels. First floor mainly retains original 12/12 sashes. At the east end of the spinal range, former infants' day room, single storey, with buttresses and on the north side, 2 large through-eaves dormers with cross-mullioned windows. East gable has symmetrical fenestration in the same style. Service range to north, 2 storeys, has plain fenestration. Service ranges to south, single storey, L-plan, are plain and have plain sashes.
INTERIOR: Central entrance hall has chamfered Tudor arched openings on each side. In the stair turrets, open well stone stairs with iron stick balusters. Basement has brick groin vaults, and retains large late C19 cooking range. On the first floor, a wooden stair to the attics, with stick balusters and ramped handrail. Attics have chamfered Tudor cross-arches and unusual strutted roof trusses. Side ranges have on the ground floor arch braces to cross beams, and various C20 partitions. On the first floor, arch braces, corbels and wall shafts to principal rafter roof. This floor, formerly dormitories, has C2C' partitions and suspended ceiling. Spinal range has on the first floor an arch braced roof carried on central chamfered wooden posts, and C20 suspended ceiling.
History: Workhouse schools were used to segregate children from adult paupers with the intention that they would be educated into socially desirable habits and cease to be paupers. They were a major development in social policy. Stoke on Trent had one of the earliest such schools, and Block A was an extension and development of the service it provided. This scheme was not followed in all workhouses, and surviving examples of such school buildings are rare.

Listing NGR: SJ8569345204

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473986

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LBS

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