BROMSGROVE

Barnsley Hall Hospital (Second Worcestershire County Lunatic Asylum) SO 961 726 100631 largely demolished

The former administration block and chapel are the main remnants of Barnsley Hall Hospital. The site has been redeveloped for housing. The lodge also survives and some staff houses.

It was built as the second county asylum for Worcester to designs by the specialist asylum architect G. T. HIne. The estate was purchased in 1899 and building carried out between 1903 and 1907. It follows the familiar échelon plan that dominated asylum design in England at the turn of the century, in which the patients’ accommodation blocks were arranged in an arrow or échelon formation off spine corridors. This provided the patients with open views over the garden grounds with a southerly aspect. Initially it provided accommodation for 254 males (on the western side) and 316 females (on the east). It was intended that the asylum would eventually expand to house 1,200 patients.

In 1907 shortly after the asylum opened tenders were invited for a dairy and other works, including alterations to the farm buildings. A detached chapel was built to the north of the administration block, and there was also an isolation hospital added. Plans for an admissions hospital by A. V. Rowe were drawn up in 1937 but not built – presumably abandoned in 1939 at the outbreak of the Second World War. An EMS hutted hospital (latterly called Lea Hospital) was built to the south west of the main site, demolished in or by 1992.

Plans were revived after the war to build an admissions hospital as well as two convalescent villas and staff houses, but again these plans seem not to have come to fruition. [Sources: Kathryn A. Morrison, report written April 1993, Historic England Archives BF 100631: The Builder, 29 Nov. 1902, p.515; 6 July 1907, p.24; 20 July 1907, p.94; 7 Dec. 1945, p.469: plans in Worcester County Record Office of 1937 admissions hospital.]

Bromsgrove General Hospital (All Saints’ Hospital; Bromsgrove Union Workhouse) SO 965 716 100597 largely demolished

Bromsgrove Union Workhouse was built in 1837-8 to designs by J. Bateman and G. Drury based on the Poor Law Commissioners model plan for a cruciform workhouse. The architects also provided the plans for the workhouses at Leek, Birmingham and Stratford upon Avon. The entrance range is the only remaining section of the original complex.

A new infirmary was added to the rear in 1884, and during the Second World War ward huts were built on the site as part of the Emergency Medical Scheme (EMS).

The workhouse was transferred to the NHS, the huge EMS extension enabled its transformation into a general hospital, and it first changed its name to All Saints Hospital and then became Bromsgrove General Hospital. The EMS huts continued in use into the 1970s. The hospital was replaced by the Princess of Wales Community Hospital. [see also Workhouses.org.]

Blackwell Convalescent Home (Birmingham and Midland Counties Sanatorium) SO 989 717 BF100767 demolished

Three-storey convalescent home of 1866. Site redeveloped with housing on Laurel Bank Mews.

Bromsgrove Cottage Hospital SO 963 708 100637 demolished

The cottage hospital at Bromsgrove was established in five rented cottages at Mount Pleasant in 1878. A purpose-built hospital was erected in 1890-91 to designs by John Cotton, of Cotton & Bidlake, the local firm. It had 13 beds and had been built at a cost of £4,121 by J. Brazier of Bromsgrove. Designed in a domestic cottage style of red brick, stone dressings and half-timbering, the hospital had a two-storey central block containing a day room for convalescents and matron’s room on the ground floor with bedrooms above, with single-storey ward wings to either side. A basement contained a surgical ward, dispensary, operating theatre and kitchens. Alterations and additions in the early 1930s included a mortuary, children’s ward, casualty ward, six private wards and a new kitchen (J. C. Gadd, architect).[The Builder, 22 Jan. 1932, p.206; 16 June 1933, p.984: see also J. T. Banks, A Short History of the Bromsgrove Cottage Hospital … 1948: report by Kathryn A. Morrison, April 1993, Historic England Archives, Building File 100637.]

Hill Top Hospital (Bromsgrove, Droitwich and Redditch JHB Isolation Hospital) SO 948 698 100630 demolished

The origins of the isolation hospital here lie with the Bromsgrove, Droitwich and Redditch Joint Infectious Hospital Committee’s proposal in 1898 to put up a wood and iron hospital to which end they engaged a Mr Gadd to prepare specifications. [The Builder, 26 Feb. 1898, p.213.] The Committee apparently decided instead on a permanent hospital which was built in 1901-2. Henry T. Hare of London and Herbert R. Lloyd of Birmingham acted as joint architects. [B, 1 Dec. 1900, p.501.]

The hospital opened in 1902 with 40 beds arranged in two main ward blocks and two isolation blocks – presumably cubicle isolation blocks, and probably those with cross-plans on the OS map. The buildings were arranged around a courtyard, with an administration block on the north side and service block on the south beside one of the cubicle isolation blocks. A TB pavilion was designed by A. K. Rowe added in 1914 to the north of the existing buildings. [B, 25 June 1914, p.771; Warwick County Archives plans.]

Further additions to the site were made in the 1930s and ’40s, (S. N. Cooke, architect, Birmingham), these were presumably the nurses’ home built to the north of the 1914 TB pavilion, and the large ward block built to the west of the original group – which on the OS map also has the look of a TB block with its veranda on the south side.

Closure of the hospital was mooted in the 1980s and the buildings were empty when recorded in 1993. In 1994 planning permission was granted for the demolition of the hospital to make way for residential development on the green belt site. Bryant Homes submitted a scheme for 106 homes. Parkstone Avenue and the surrounding housing was laid out on the site. [Source: Kathryn A. Morrison, hospital report written 1993, Historic England Archives BF 100630: Wolverhampton Express and Star, 2 April 1994, p.28.]

Princess of Wales Community Hospital, Stourbridge Road

Officially opened by Princess Diana in 1992, and built to designs by the Hospital Design Partnership in 1989-91 partly on the site of the former workhouse. The Pevsner Architectural Guide considered the best building on the site to be Brook Haven, the mental health unit, designed by Abbey Hanson Rowe and built in 1994-5, who also were the architects for the mental health unit at the Alexandra Hospital. [N. Pevsner and Alan Brooks, Worcestershire, 2007.]

DODDENHAM

Knightwick Sanatorium (Worcestershire King Edward VII Sanatorium) SO 734 566 100662 demolished?

The sanatorium was transferred to the NHS in 1948, and accommodated children. By the 1970s the site had become Sunningdale Holiday Estate. It seems to have been developed as housing and the sanatorium buildings demolished.

DROITWICH SPA

Highfield Hospital SO 899 629 100657 demolished

Founded by the Birmingham Hospital Saturday Fund as a convalescent home in 1917. It closed around 2002 and was subsequently demolished. Housing around Highfield Close was built on the site. [See Hospital Investigator.]

St John’s Hospital SO 903 631 100628 converted to a care home

Built in 1891-2 to designs by John Douglas, of Douglas & Fordham, architects of Chester. A ‘cottage hospital’ was established in converted cottages in 1881 ‘to give poor persons suffering from rheumatism the benefit of brine baths’. [Kelly’s Directory, 1900.] Presumably the endeavour was a success as a purpose-built establishment was erected to replace the cottages a decade later. Mrs Dyson Perrins of Malvern (of Lee and Perrins fame) donated £5,000 to instigate the new building which provided for 24 male and 17 female patients. The name ‘St John’s Brine Baths Hospital’ seems to have been adopted at this time.[Worcester Journal, 1 Oct. 1892, p.5.] St John’s was a fine building, rather grander than most cottage hospitals, though on a par with a number established in the late 19th and early 20th century by wealthy benefactors. Stylistically it resembled the grander brine bath hotels and clinics in the town.

The larger west wing was for men, the east wing for women. A plaque above their separate arched porches read ‘Entrance for Men’ and ‘Entrance for Women’. Later additions respected the style of the original building, carried out in the mid-1920s bringing the capacity of the hospital up to 60. A ‘smoke room’ was added in 1938-9, a common feature of convalescent homes and the smarter long-stay hospitals in this era. [Source: report by Kathryn A. Morrison written March 1993 in Historic England Archives, Building File 100628.]

The hospital did not transfer to the NHS in 1948, and in the 1990s was converted into a nursing home. It was sold for £2m in 2021. [Worcester News, 10 Jan. 2021 online.]

Now Brindley Manor Nursing Home, the former hospital closed in the early 1990s and was converted into a care home. According to the Pevsner guide, in 2003 it was converted into housing by Pentan Partnership of Cardiff. [N. Pevsner and Alan Brooks, Worcestershire, 2007.]

Droitwich Spa Hospital and Brine Baths

Built to replace St John’s Hospital in 1984-5 by Associated Architects (partner in charge Richard J. Slawson, project architect Michael A. Pitkin). A low pale-brick building of ‘disappointingly safe design’ according to the Pevsner guide. [N. Pevsner and Alan Brooks, Worcestershire, 2007.]

EVESHAM

Evesham Community Hospital (Evesham Union Workhouse, Avonside Hospital) SP 037 430 100661 workhouse buildings largely demolished

Evesham workhouse was built in 1836-7, the architect being John Plowman, junior, of Oxford. An infirmary was added in 1869-70 designed by George Hunt. The chapel was built in 1879-Guide dismissed the remainder of the buildings on the site as a ‘dispiriting 20th Century rag-bag’, the Waterside Day Hospital of 1979 the best of the bunch. [N. Pevsner and Alan Brooks, Worcestershire, 2007.]

Evesham Hospital (Evesham Cottage Hospital) SP 035 441 100802 largely demolished

The movement to establish a cottage hospital in Evesham began in earnest in 1876 by a group of locals and with the assistance of the editor of the Evesham Journal. A public meeting was held in the Town Hall in December and £1,400 soon raised. The site was granted at a nominal ground rent by E. Charles Rudge. The hospital was built in 1877-9 to designs by George Hunt, and formally opened in 1879. It was established on a subscription basis, with subscribers entitled to recommend one patient for every £1 1 shilling subscribed.[BMJ, 12 March 1881, p.410: H.C. Burdett, Hospitals and Charities Year Book, 1899.]

By the end of the 19th century it had 10 beds and 2 cots, and admitted patients on the recommendation of a subscriber to the hospital, and payment of not less than 3 shillings for adults or 2 shillings for children per week. Patients had to provide clothing and personal linen. The nurses’ home was added in 1912-13, probably designed by Hunt’s son and fellow architect, George Henry Hunt. Later additions to the site were made in 1926-7, C. E. Bateman architect. [N. Pevsner and Alan Brooks, Worcestershire, 2007: obituary of G. H. Hunt, Royal Incorporation of British Architects Journal, v.23, 1916 pp 29-31.]

GREAT MALVERN

Malvern Hospital, Lansdowne Crescent SO 781 460 100261 demolished

Opened in 1911, the hospital was designed by William Henman in 1909. It replaced premises in Hospital Bank. The cost was met by local benefactor C. W. Dyson Perrins, who also owned the site In Lansdowne Crescent. Henman had previously designed the family’s factory built in 1896-7 (the Lea and Perrins Worcester Sauce Factory), an extension to the family home, Davenham House and the Perrins Centre, Ardross, in 1904. Henman is perhaps best known for his innovative Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, opened in 1901.

The hospital was of two storeys over a basement, with a three storey and attic central section. In the two-storey wings were eight-bed wards, unusually at this date the bathroom was not at the far end of the ward beyond a cross-ventilated lobby, but at the inner end of the ward, opposite a single-bedded room. There was also a four-bed ward in the central section of the building. [Rock Davidson Associates, Heritage Assessment of Significance, September 2015.]

Malvern Community Hospital, Worcester Road

Officially opened in February 2011 by Princess Anne, replacing the former hospital in Lansdowne Crescent.

Malvern Rural Hospital, Hospital Bank SO 775 473

In use as a boys’ club in the 1920s and ’30s, and now divided into three separate private dwellings. It was built in 1868 to designs by Henry Haddon.

KIDDERMINSTER

Kidderminster General Hospital, Mill Street (Kidderminster Infirmary; Kidderminster and District General Hospital, Hill Street Branch) SO 825 769 BF 100633 converted to housing

Built in 1870-1 to designs by J. G. Bland in a High Victorian Gothic style. The stair tower to the rear lit by stained glass by Gibbs & Howard of 1888, and containing stiars with cast-iron balustrading. The side wings were extended to the rear in 1886 and 1902-3, and a detached isolation block added in 1888. The mortuary chapel was added in 1908. A further block was added in the mid-1920s to the south – initially linked by a corridor to designs by Pritchard & Godwin in sympathetic Gothic style.

Now converted to housing as Bradley Thursfield Court.

Kidderminster General Hospital, Bewdley Road (Kidderminster Union Workhouse) SO 822 764 100627 original workhouse buildings largely demolished

The present hospital was built on the side of Kidderminster Union Workhouse, of which only one remnant survives on the corner of Sutton and Bewdley Roads. The original workhouse had been considerable expanded with detached infirmary blocks on its east side from the late 19th century. It developed as a general hospital under the NHS and provided the site for the new district general built in the 1970s-80s. The Pevsner Architectural Guide described the hospital as a ‘sprawling conglomeration’, mostly by Leonard J. Multon & Partners, noting the long D Block, then psychology, of 1979 of two storeys in plum brick; the five-storey C Block of 1971-2, ‘faced with crude concrete panels’; E Block a ‘lumpen; two-tone brick building of 1995 by the Hospital Design Partnership of Leeds; Brook House, staff accommodation in an 8-storey tower of 1971-2; and B Block of 1985. The interior had then been lately re-ordered with new entrances and the obligatory atrium in 2003-4 (MAAP Architects). [N. Pevsner and Alan Brooks, Worcestershire, 2007.]

The original union workhouse was built in 1836-8, replacing earlier parish workhouses, the plans drawn up by William Knight and J. Nettleship based on the model cruciform plan devised for the Poor Law Commissioners. The detached chapel was added in 1865 (W. J. Hopkins, architect). [see also workhouses.org.]

KYRE

Kyre Park SO 6262 6353 private residence

Kyre Park is a 14th century fortified house which was repaired and extended c.1600, remodelled in 1753-6, and restored and extended c.1880. Extensive alterations were carried out c.1940. Some of the original sandstone rubble survives but the majority of the fabric is brick. The house is roughly T-shaped in plan, with the 14th century section to the west. It was used as a convalescent home for military officers during the Second World War. It was then a sanatorium for children and later used as a home for people with disabilities. It is now a private residence once again. Listed. The Registered Gardens are open to the public.

MALVERN WELLS

St Wulstan’s Hospital (Great Malvern Emergency Hospital) SO 783 413 100763 demolished

PERSHORE

Pershore Cottage Hospital SO 949 453 100626 demolished

The hospital had closed and was boarded up by 2009. It had been replaced by Nightingale Lodge by 2018, the panel bearing the words ‘Cottage hospital’ was retained and now forms part of a new boundary wall.

POWICK

Powick Hospital (County and City of Worcester Lunatic Asylum) SO 820 507 100247 partly demolished, remains converted to housing – now Barrington Grange

In 1847 th eCounty and city of Worcester agreed to combine to build a county asylum for 200 patients and in the same year acquired the site, White Chimneys Farm. A competition was held for the design that was won by Hamilton & Medland of Gloucester in 1848. Work began in 1850 and the asylum opened in 1852. Early additions by W. Knight in 1853 included a Romanesque style chapel, though this was subsequently replaced by a new, Gothic-style chapel in 1885 (see illustration below).

Further additions were made to the site in 1860-61, including an infirmary for female patients with 40 beds, a recreation room and Wyvern House, accommodating 100 patients, Henry Rowe was the architect for these. A few years’ later a new detached house was built for the Medical Superintendent. In 1870-1 a detached wing was built for 134 convalescent patients, also designed by Rowe. In 1883 an annexe for 70 male patients was added intended for patients with epilepsy, but also the suicidal, seemingly an unusual combination. A similar addition for females was also added, with 140 beds. Further additions were carried out in the 1890s.

St Cloud, Callow End, SO 831 485.

Former House, converted to a convalescent home, returned to being a private house. Not transferred to the NHS.

REDDITCH

Alexandra Hospital (Bromsgrove and Redditch District General Hospital) SP 060 646

District General Hospital built by the NHS in 1984-6 on a greenfield site. Its grid plan is presumably either a Nucleus or Best Buy model plan. The architects were the Hospital Design Partnership, project architect, Jim Richardson.

The entrance to the main hospital has a large bronze plaque on the left of a naked family (dated 1986 and initialled ‘J.T.’).

The hospital is mostly two-storeyed in brick, with some playfulness in the first-floor oriel windows – treated as sharp triangles – and shallow bay windows on corbelled sills. There are also chamfered angles to the wings, but the gun-metal ridged roofing and proliferation of service pipes and flues no doubt contributed to the Pevsner guide’s authors finding it ‘industrial looking’. They found the mental health unit to the north-east, Hill Crest, ‘more uplifting with hipped and pyramidal roofs’. The architects of Hill Crest were Abbey Hanson Rowe and it was built in 1992-4.

Smallwood Hospital (Avondale Day Hospital) SP 041 678 100629 now Smallwood House

Smallwood Hospital was built in 1894-5 to designs by William Henson of Birmingham. It is named after Edwin Smallwood, needle manufacturer, who died in 1892 leaving a bequest to build a cottage hospital in Redditch. His brother, William, donated a further £15,000 to the scheme.

A plaque within the hospital records the original gift of £5,000 to build and endow the hospital to serve Redditch and its neighbourhood. The date ‘1894’ appears in the pediment above the doorway fronting a balustrade, and the gable to the central bay is faced in stone with strapwork ornament, a central oculus, and the name of the hospital in the frieze. There is also a fine weather vane atop the finial. . It is a handsome building, in vaguely Jacobethan style with its mullioned and transomed windows and multi-gabled facade, but its planning was found to be imperfect by the specialist journal The Hospital. The arrangement of the WCs was not of the accepted form beyond ‘cut-off lobbies’, the children’s ward did not have its own kitchen, and there was no dispensary or rooms for medical officers. [The Hospital, 2 Oct 1897, pp.15-16.]

An out-patients’ department occupied a single-storeyed wing at the south end, later extended and raised to match the rest of the building. The wards had eight beds, those for men were on the ground floor, with women on the floor above. A laundry and mortuary were located to the rear of the building. Under the NHS a health centre was built on ground to the north of the hospital some time between 1968 and 1977 (now demolished). It was still standing when the Pevsner guide was being written, described as a long, three-storey building with an office range of c.1968 for Worcestershire County Council, concrete-framed, faced in yellow brick with continuous window bands. It stood behind the nurses’ home, which occupied the Red House, a fine Georgian town house (currently a dental surgery). Between the nurses’ home and the hospital were the county court offices, later a surgery (now Prospect House). At some point the hospital seems to have been renamed Avondale Day Hospital but by the 1990s it had reverted to the name Smallwood. Currently (2024) Smallwood House is an NHS health centre.

STOURBRIDGE – see under West Midlands

TENBURY WELLS

Tenbury Cottage Hospital – see under Shropshire

UPTON UPON SEVERN

Upton upon Severn Union Workhouse (Laburnum House) SO 855 400 100522 demolished

Wolverley and Cookley: Lea Castle Hospital SO 852 792 100658 demolished

Large institution built on the colony system for patients with disabilities. Commenced in 1948 and built in three phases. Its planning pre-dated the formation of the NHS. The former Joint Board for Worcestershire had drawn up plans for the hospital and placed the contract for the first phase of work a few days before the appointed day (5th July 1948). Phase 1 provided 160 beds, phase 2 another 203 beds and supporting services, and phase 3 another 295 beds and supporting services. It was officially opened in 1966 by C. W. Loughlin, M.P. Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Health, and had cost around £2.2m. [NHS, Birmingham Regional Hospital Board 1947-1966, 1966.]

WORCESTER

Ophthalmic Institution (Ophthalmic Hospital) SO 848 553 100635 demolished

Newtown Hospital Worcester Hospital for Infectious Diseases) SO 876 549 100651 demolished

Ronkswood Hospital SO 871 552 100632 demolished

Built as an emergency war hospital under the Emergency Medical Scheme in the Second World War. After the war it became a general hospital and part of the NHS from 1948. It finally closed in 2002 following the opening of the new Worcester Royal Hospital on the south side of Newtown Road, on the site that included and adjoined Newtown Isolation Hospital.

The emergency hospital programme had been prepared in 1938-9 in anticipation of the outbreak of war. The first phase of building took place as soon as war broke out, the majority comprising hutted annexes to former workhouses and workhouse infirmaries. Ronkswood was built during the second phase, dating from 1940-2. This was an entirely new hospital, not attached to an existing hospital. Others in England were built at Stoke Mandeville, Buckinghamshire; the Churchill Hospital, Oxford, and Wymondham in Norfolk.

Ronkswood Hospital was featured in The Builder in November 1942, but, for security reasons, was neither named nor located – beyond vaguely situating it ‘in the Midlands’. [The Builder, 6 Nov. 1942, pp.391-5.] Although the emergency hospitals followed a standard design, local architects were appointed to see through construction, here the firm of Braddell, Deane & Bird were appointed. The engineer, Donald Steward, designed the roof trusses of reinforced concrete and asbestos.

The Ronkswood hospital complex was laid out in an unusual triangular plan and had survived virtually intact into the 1990s. At the northern tip of the triangle were the service buildings, to the east a spider block of staff accommodation and to the west a larger spider block comprising the wards. The spider blocks were originally connected by open, flat-roofed covered ways, subsequently enclosed. The ‘huts’ are faced in buff brick with corrugated iron roofs. [K. A. Morrison, hospital report April 1993, Historic England Archives.]

Worcester Eye Hospital (Worcester City and County Eye Hospital, Thorneloe House) SO 846 561 100636

Worcester Royal Hospital, Charles Hastings Way.

The replacement of Worcester’s Royal Infirmary was built as a PFI contract by RTKL Associates in 1999-2001. Mostly of three storeys, of brick with artificial stone trim, and found ‘rather mechanical-looking’ by the authors of the Pevsner guide, who also thought that the glazing pattern gave the building a ‘somewhat Deco appearance’ being either quite small or arranged horizontally. As so often with more recent hospitals the interior, in particular the main concourse, is more appealing: ‘an excellently modulated space, with tall, white-painted columns and glazed corridor gallery along its rear wall’. [N. Pevsner and Alan Brooks, Worcestershire, 2007.]

Worcester Royal Infirmary, Castle Street Branch (Worcester Infirmary; Worcester General Infirmary) SO 846 552 100656 Now part of the University of Worcester city campus

A general infirmary first opened in Worcester in 1746, and was only the seventh 18th-century foundation in the provinces. It was founded on the initiative of the Bishop of Worcester who rented a house in Silver Street for use as an infirmary in October 1745. It had 25 beds, a good size for such an early establishment in converted premises. By 1754 the infirmary had 40 beds, and had outgrown the house in Silver Street. The governors began to contemplate new premises at that time, but only in 1764 formed a sub-committee to set about the task. [Joan Lane, Worcester Infirmary in the Eighteenth Century, Worcesterhsire Historical Society occasional publications no.6, 1992.]

A purpose-built hospital with 80 beds was erected in 1766-70 to designs by Anthony Keck, but pretty much identical to the earlier infirmary built in Gloucester in 1757-61 to designs by Luke Singleton. The original building was of two storeys over a raised basement, with rooms in the attic lit by dormers. The central three bay entrance and end two bays are slightly advanced, the central bays given a pediment. Ornament was minimal, but the building nevertheless handsome and suitably dignified as a testament to the philanthropic ideals of the local elite donated the funds for the building.

Many phases of extension and alterations followed. A chapel was added to the rear and the board room extended in 1849-50, Henry Day, architect – who also was the architect for the additional half-storey in 1864-5. The chapel was in a neo-Norman style with stained glass by George Rogers. Two sanitary annexes were added to the main building in 1871-4, Martin and Chamberlain architects, perhaps also the architects of the out-patients’ block on Castle Street built at the same time, with a handsome two-storey extension by A. Hill Parker & Son built as a memorial to Edward VII in 1912.

The southern ward wing was extended in 1887 (Fell & Jones, London, architects), also adding a tower to contain WCs in line with current ideas about pavilion-planned hospitals. A Nurses’ Home was also built on this side of the infirmary in 1897-8 along Infirmary Walk to designs by Lewis Sheppard & Son, in matching neo-Georgian style if rather pinched dimensions. It is of three storeys, with central pendimented entrance bay.

Most of the 20th-century additions to the site have been swept away as part of the redevelopment of the site. These include the large new nurses’ home built in 1931-2 (A. V. Rowe, architect) and its later extension on the south, and the block added in the north-west corner of the site in 1932 by the major hospital architects, Adams, Holden & Pearson. This block was further extended by the NHS in the 1960s.

Worcester Union Workhouse SO 857 550 100646 largely demolished

Built in 1893-4, incorporating an earlier workhouse infirmary block to the south. It replaced Worcester House of Industry, built in 1792-5 to designs by George Byfield, which had become the union workhouse under the New Poor Law of 1834. After the local government reforms of 1929 it became a public assistance institution, and after 1948 the infirmary block became Shrub Hill Hospital for the chronic sick and maternity cases – thereby largely retaining its original function – while the former workhouse ranges became the local-authority Hillborough home for the aged. This closed in 1978. The southern part of the site has been redeveloped with housing, some of the ranges to the north have been retained and converted some to housing, one range has become a mosque, another a training centre. The boundary wall on the north side of the site has also been retained. [see also workhouses.org.]