Brislington House, Bath Road. This large and imposing building, a nursing home in 1992, was originally erected c.1804 as a private lunatic asylum and comprised a series of detached houses which have since been united. The asylum was established by Dr Edward Fox, an important figure in the early history of the care of the insane. He also pioneered the use of iron in the construction of asylums both for fireproofing and to alleviate the ‘dangers from … lice and vermin’. A chapel was added in 1850-1 at the north end of the asylum and it may have been at this date that the separate blocks were joined together. The recreation hall was added in 1866 to the east of the chapel, its plain exterior giving no hint of the rich interior with its classically detailed plasterwork and panelling.  ST 633 702, 101333

Bristol General Hospital, Guinea Street. Originally founded in 1832 and established in converted premises in Guinea Street, this general hospital moved to a new purpose-built home erected in 1856-7 adjacent to Bathurst Basin. The new hospital, designed by William Bruce Gingell, of Bristol, was an imposing three-storey building, faced with Pennant stone rubble with Bath stone dressings. It featured French-inspired dormer roofs and corner turret, and had open colonnades and an unusual, heavily-rusticated basement storey, with large open vaults to be offered for rent as warehouse space.

The hospital contained an out-patients’ department and administrative and staff rooms on the ground floor, with general wards for males and females on the two floors above; nurses’ were accommodated in the attic. An additional ward and staff wing, also of Pennant and Bath stone, was added in 1888-91, designed by Crisp & Oatley, a local firm. Subsequent additions include: a two-storey detached isolation block and a further nurses’ home extension (1907); a large women’s and maternity ward wing (1914), with open sun balconies and a roof garden; a pathological laboratory (1914); a chapel (1915); and a new out-patients’ department (1931). The original buildings have suffered greatly, having lost their dormer roofs and cupola, and the open colonnades and sun balconies have been filled in.  ST 588 722, 101332

Bristol Homoeopathic Hospital, Cotham Hill. The hospital was founded as a homeopathic dispensary in a house in Queen Square in 1852. It was not until 1903 that in-patients were catered for in a building in Brunswick Square. In 1917 Walter Melville Wills, then President of the hospital, purchased Cotham House with a view to erecting a new hospital in its grounds. The design of the new building was drawn up by George Oatley and Lawrence in 1920 and work began in the following summer. The elegant, honey-coloured stone building was largely of three storeys, asymmetrically planned and ornamented with Jacobean details. There were pavilion-plan wards and some private single rooms and a marble-lined operating theatre on the top floor of the north wing. The gardens were laid out with much care in 1925-7, and Cotham House was converted into a nurses’ home. The hospital was transferred to the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948 but is now largely empty apart from a homeopathic clinic. ST 582 738, 101327

Bristol Royal Infirmary, Marlborough Street (Bristol Infirmary). The infirmary at Bristol was one of the first to be founded in England outside London. Subscriptions began to be made in November 1736 and the present site was acquired shortly afterwards. The first patients were admitted to the make-shift hospital in the following year. It was not until 1782 that the decision to provide a new, purpose-built infirmary was taken. Thomas Paty, a local architect, drew up the plans and building proceeded in three phases. The east wing was erected first between 1784 and 1786. The central block was put up in 1788-92 and the west wing added in 1806-10. It was a large and impressive building of three storeys and basement, to which an attic storey was added later. A chapel with a museum underneath was added in 1858. In 1911-12 the King Edward VII wing was built to provide up-to-date medical and surgical wards. It was designed by H. Percy Adams and Charles Holden in a stylish, stripped classical style which looks forward to inter-war modernism. The infirmary became part of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948 and continued to serve Bristol as a general hospital until recently. ST 587 735, 101329

Cossham Memorial Hospital, Lodge Hill Road, Kingswood. This small general hospital was built through the generosity of Handel Cossham, the MP for Bristol East. He left a substantial sum for the erection and endowment of a hospital when he died in 1890. Work commenced in 1903 to the designs of F. Bligh Bond and the hospital opened on 1 June 1907. It was an imposing building, of two storeys and attic, dominated by an ornate polygonal tower with four clock faces, surmounted by a cupola and weather-vane. Built of local Pennant stone with Bath stone dressings, there was a wealth of decoration on the main façade. Only minor additions were made subsequently and when the hospital was transferred to the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948 it must have appeared much as it had done when it was first built. ST 642 746, 101331

Glenside Hospital (City and County of Bristol Mental Hospital; Bristol Mental Hospital) ST 615 761, 101585

Manor Park Hospital, Manor Road (Bristol Corporation Workhouse; Stapleton Institution). A former workhouse site, featuring: an old prison block, of stone, erected during the early nineteenth century by French prisoners of war and later converted to dormitory use; a main three-storey workhouse section, of c.1890, facing the road; detached two-storey infirmaries for male and female inmates, also dating from the late nineteenth century; and a small chapel. ST 629 762, 101326

Nover’s Hill Isolation Hospital ST 587 687, 102755

Queen Victoria Jubilee Convalescent Home ST 560 740, BF101532. Convalescent home built in 1897, with 90 beds for patients from the Bristol hospitals. E-shaped plan of building. Built from brick with stone dressings.

Royal Hospital for Sick Children, St Michael’s Hill (Royal Hospital for Sick Children and Women; Children’s Hospital). A purpose-built children’s hospital, erected in 1883 on a commanding site to replace earlier converted premises nearby. The architect was Robert Curwen, of Westminster, who designed a small, pavilion-plan group of wards, facing south, connected on their north sides by a corridor to a Perpendicular-style administration building on the main road. All the buildings were of local red stone, quarried on site, lined with brick and dressed with Bath stone. As well as the usual general wards, the hospital provided apparatus for the treatment of croup, a surgical ward where mothers could accompany their babies, a convalescents’ play-room, and two wards for women. There were also isolation (and later out-patients’) facilities in the grounds. ST 585 735, 101328

Southmead Hospital (Barton Regis Union Workhouse; Bristol Union Workhouse) ST 591 777, 100888

University of Bristol Dental Hospital, Lower Maudlin Street. A small city-centre dental institution, designed by Eustace H. Button and erected in c.1940, it combined an out-patients’ department with laboratory, lecture and library facilities for the students. Of three stories, it is a plain, utilitarian building of red brick, with minimal stone dressings and period aluminium lettering. An air-raid shelter was included in the original design. ST 586 735, 101330