Administrative Block to Former Lambeth Workhouse

Reasons for Designation

The former administrative block to Lambeth Workhouse has been designated for the following principal reasons:

* Of special interest for the architectural quality of the exterior, whose principal elevations are virtually intact and highly ornate for a workhouse building of the time, especially so for London; * The chapel has special interest for its decorative treatment, which echoes that of the façade, and its unusual and elaborate roof; * Of rarity value in London as the principal building of a Victorian metropolitan workhouse, of which only few examples survive; * Historic interest as one of the earliest metropolitan workhouses to be rebuilt following the Metropolitan Poor Act (1867); * Historic interest for the Charlie Chaplin association, and the Doulton connection; * Group value with the water tower, and the courthouse and fire station in Renfrew Road (qv), altogether a good ensemble of Victorian public/institutional buildings.

Details

963/0/10177 RENFREW ROAD 04-SEP-08 Administrative block to former Lambeth Workhouse

II Former administrative block and chapel to Lambeth Workhouse, later part of Lambeth Hospital. Built 1871-3 by the Parish of St Mary, Lambeth (foundation stone dated 3 April 1871 laid by John Doulton, the pottery manufacturer, Chairman of the Board of Guardians). Architects R Parris and TW Aldwinckle. Extended 1880.

MATERIALS: Yellow stock brick with red brick and stone dressings; some blue brick detail; terracotta decoration. Slate hipped roofs.

PLAN: The workhouse was aligned NW/SE, laid out symmetrically on the 'pavilion plan' principle, comprising a central administrative block, dining halls and service buildings to the rear, flanked on either side by two long 2-storey pavilion ward blocks, the whole linked by a long lateral corridor on each floor and a 2-storey covered way between the blocks. The pavilion blocks and rear buildings have been demolished.

The surviving block comprises a central corridor with rooms to either side, including the former committee room to the left, and a cross corridor at the rear with a stair to either end. The upper floor is a large open-plan chapel. The building is flanked by lower, set-back 2-storey wings (originally the master's office to the N and living quarters to the S); these in turn have set-back wings of 1880 when the workhouse was extended. The flat-roofed structure to the rear of the administrative block is not of special interest.

EXTERIOR: Unified, symmetrical composition. Principal block in ornate Venetian Gothic manner with polychrome brickwork, contrasting stone, and narrow horizontal terracotta panel in dog-tooth pattern above ground-floor openings and to upper-floor window aprons.

Front (W) elevation of 3 bays divided by pilasters, with angle pilasters to returns. Central bay has a triple-arched recessed porch with carved stone capitals, those to piers are zig-zagged and crocketed; central arch is carried on doubled cast-iron columns. Arches are round-headed with a pointed extrados accentuated by a band of blue brick, finely gauged red-brick heads, and flush keystones (these details are repeated in the arches to the upper-floor windows to chapel). Behind porch is the main entrance flanked by round-headed windows, with gauged brick arches. Narrow paired windows to outer bays of front. Upper-floor central bay has triple windows with detail to complement porch beneath, but with stone engaged columns to the central arch. Tall windows to either side, and those to first-floor side elevations, have stone upper sections with inset roundels, and moulded brackets beneath forming a Caernarvon arch above tall sash windows below. Cills have dog-tooth moulding to lower edge. Moulded brick and stone dentilled cornice between storeys and to eaves. Side elevations, up to abutment with lower wings, have 1 and 3 bays separated by a pilaster. The pilasters disguise ventilation flues serving the chapel; each terminates in a low square stack. Ground-floor windows to main block and side wings have segmental gauged-brick arches with dentilled intrados and slightly pointed extrados; stone shoulders. Side wings are identical with 2 inner bays, a full height canted bay, a single stepped back bay and pavilion behind. The façade follows some of the decorative treatment of the main block with red brick and terracotta detail and a dentilled cornice. Single windows to ground floor and paired narrower windows to upper floor; those to 2 inner first-floor bays have arrow loop between. Timber sash windows to all elevations. Section of covered way to NW is two storeys, the upper one open to the sides, with a double-pitched roof carried on cast-iron columns. Decorative wrought-iron balustrades to upper walkway.

INTERIOR: The essential plan survives; ground floor modernised with suspended ceilings and lacks visible features of interest. Stairs have simple iron balustrades. First-floor chapel of 5 bays; the 2 easternmost bays (where the chapel abuts the side wings) are blind; the lower sections of the 5 rear windows are blocked. The decorative treatment reflects that of the façade: polychrome brickwork, terracotta ornament and gauged-brick window arches. Unusual partly-ceiled hammerbeam roof with pierced metal discs to spandrels of arch braces. The 3 perforated zinc panels in the timber-boarded ceiling provided ventilation through vertical flues in the walls; a gas burner being placed in each panel to create an upward current of the vitiated air. Interiors of side wings not inspected.

The lodges and former receiving wards to either side of the entrance to the site are not of special interest.

HISTORY: The first parish workhouse of St Mary, Lambeth was built in 1726 near Lambeth Butts (now the west end of Black Prince Road). A workhouse is shown on Horwood's map of 1799 on Workhouse Lane (later Princes and then Black Prince Road) near to Lambeth Butts, probably the same buildings as the above. The Lambeth Poor Law Parish, formed in 1835 after the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, retained and expanded this building. Lambeth gained some notoriety when an undercover exposé: 'A Night in a Workhouse', by journalist James Greenwood, who spent a night in the casual ward at Lambeth Workhouse disguised as a vagrant and witnessed its filthy and overcrowded conditions, was published in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1866. Lambeth was one of several workhouses rebuilt in the wake of the Metropolitan Poor Act (1867), which established separate infirmaries for workhouses. The new building in Renfrew Road was designed by R Parris and TW Aldwinckle following a limited architectural competition. It housed 820 inmates. The plan followed the 'pavilion' principle, based on current hospital design. Lambeth Workhouse was the first to adopt the pavilion plan in London, and was one of the earliest nationally to do so. Its most famous inmate was the seven-year old Charlie Chaplin, who stayed there briefly in 1896 with his mother when his father fell into debt. An infirmary was built on the adjacent site to the NW of the workhouse to the design of Fowler and Hill, completed in 1877. In 1922, the workhouse and infirmary were amalgamated and renamed Lambeth Hospital. Of the infirmary, only the water tower (qv) survives; this structure also served the workhouse.

Thomas William Aldwinckle (1843/4-1920) designed other workhouses, including Wandsworth and Clapham Union Workhouse, 1886, now demolished, as well as hospitals, asylums and public baths.

SOURCES: The Builder, 24 January 1874, pp 69-70 Royal Commission on Historical Monuments of England, unpublished report on Lambeth Workhouse NMR 101038 (1996) Kathryn Morrison, The Workhouse, English Heritage (1999) www.workhouses.org.uk

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The former administrative block to Lambeth Workhouse is listed for the following principal reasons: * Of special interest for the architectural quality of the exterior, whose principal elevations are virtually intact and highly ornate for a workhouse building of the time, especially so for London; * The chapel has special interest for its internal decorative treatment, which echoes that of the façade, and its unusual and elaborate roof; * Of rarity value as the principal building of a Victorian metropolitan workhouse, of which only few examples survive in London; * Historic interest as one of the earliest metropolitan workhouses to be rebuilt following the Metropolitan Poor Act (1867); * Historic interest for the Charlie Chaplin association, and the Doulton connection; * Group value with the former workhouse/infirmary water tower, and the courthouse and fire station in Renfrew Road (qv), altogether a good ensemble of Victorian public/institutional buildings.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

503403

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Morrison, K, The Workhouse - A Study of Poor Law Buildings in England, (1999)
The Builder in 24 January, (1874), 69-70

End of official list entry

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