Probably the best source that I have been using for updating the Scottish Hospitals Survey is the National Library of Scotland’s map images. Maps are always key to charting the history and development of buildings, settlements and indeed the landscape. And the best thing of all is that the NLS is freely available to all. It is a wonderful resource.
Athole & Breadalbane Union Poorhouse (see Perth & Kinross). Extract from the 1st Edition OS Map, surveyed in 1863. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
Many of the maps, and for me particularly the first edition Ordinance Survey maps and large scale town plans, are things of beauty as well as mines of information. Being so used to the grey tones of most nineteenth-century OS maps, the vibrant pinks and reds of the buildings, buff or ochre paths and roads, and the blues of river and sea, are also a joy.
Kelso dispensary, Roxburgh Street, founded in 1777 (see Borders). Extract from the 1st edition OS map, surveyed in 1858. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
For anyone interested in public buildings these maps are especially useful as they give ground plans, and often room uses as well.
Barony or Barnhill Poorhouse was completed in 1853, so this map was produced just a few years after it opened (see Glasgow). Extract from 1857 Town Plan of Glasgow, reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
Detail of the OS large-scale Town Plans, showing the central part of Barony Poorhouse.
I have never been sure about how to interpret the mapping of gardens, some seem too generic to be completely accurate representations, although the general layouts, or features such as embankments, paths, ditches etc. are more likely to be as existing. If anyone knows more, please do enlighten me. Looking at the detail of Barony Poorhouse above, the arrangement in the airing yard with diagonal paths leading up to a viewing area with seats seems too unusual not to be an accurate depiction of an actual feature.
The former Crichton Royal Asylum (see Dumfries & Galloway). Extract from the 1st edition OS map, surveyed in 1856. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
The Crichton Royal – what at first site might look like elaborately laid out formal gardens around the cruciform building are in fact the earthworks of the different airing grounds.
Detail of the former Crichton Royal Asylum. Extract from the 1st edition OS map, surveyed in 1856. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
Zooming in it becomes clearer. The airing grounds were walled enclosures, to prevent escape, but in order to allow the patients to see over the confining walls the ground within was built up to form a flat-topped mound. Bowling greens are shown close by the Crichton Royal and the Royal Edinburgh Asylum (below).
Royal Edinburgh Asylum (see Edinburgh). Extract from the large-scale town plans, sheet 50, surveyed in 1852. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
Comparing different editions of the maps show how an institution was added to and changed. Between 1852 (above) and 1876 (below) wings were added to the main asylum building to the west, extending into the walled airing grounds.
Royal Edinburgh Asylum. Extract from the OS Large-scale Town Plans 1876. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
The grounds of the East Division of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum not only have a bowling green, but what appears to be an orchard with paths crossing it, a formal flower bed (on the west side), shelter belts of mixed trees, and, on the east side, a cruciform feature which, on zooming in, is marked as a bower.
Detail of the 1852 map, showing the Bower in the asylum grounds, with a cage marked at the centre where the paths cross.
The cage presumably was an aviary. Caged birds were recommended for lunatic asylum patients in the mid-nineteenth century, along with potted plants and pictures, to provide objects of interest and an air of domesticity.
Perth poorhouse (see Perth & Kinross), later Rosslyn House, council offices. From the OS large-scale town plans, 1860. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
Perth poorhouse can be seen in splendid isolation, the wrong side of the railway tracks and very much on the outskirts of the city. The map was produced in 1860, the year after the poorhouse was built.
Perth Poorhouse, detail. OS large-scale town plans, 1860. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
The National Library of Scotland site allows you to zoom right in. The plan of the poorhouse above shows the room uses, positions of doors, windows and stairs. It shows the divisions within the poorhouse – women on one side and men on the other – and the separation of the aged and children from the able-bodied adults. You can also see that the managers had grander rooms, placed either side of the main entrance, which had bay windows (the Board Room and the Governor’s Office).
Finally, a note for anyone not of a Scottish persuasion. The NLS has maps of Northern Ireland, Wales, and, dare I say it, even England.
Following on from the post featuring Midhurst Sanatorium chapel, I wanted to look at the main Sanatorium building. It is one of the most important former sanatoria in England and one of the most attractive. Latterly the King Edward VII Hospital, it closed in 2006 and remained empty for some years after. The sanatorium building and chapel were listed Grade II* and the gardens registered, conferring a degree of protection for these important buildings and imposing restrictions on the re-use and redevelopment of the site. Nevertheless, by 2012 the condition of the buildings had deteriorated and the chapel was placed on the Heritage at Risk register. In 2015 work began on the redevelopment of the site, turning it into a luxury estate, by the developers City and Country.
A rather scratchy slide from June 1992 of the King Edward VII Hospital, as it then was.
As the name of the hospital implies, the origins of this sanatorium were closely linked with Edward VII. Having decided to fund the erection of a sanatorium in England for patients suffering from tuberculosis, in 1901, the year that he acceded to the throne, the king appointed an advisory committee comprising some of the leading medical men of the day to ensure that it should be of the most up-to-date design. There were six men on the committee: Sir William Broadbent Bt KCVO; Sir Richard Douglas Powell Bt KCVO; Sir Francis Laking KCVO; Sir Felix Semon; Sir Hermann Weber; and Dr C. Theodore Williams. In February 1902 the committee announced in the medical press of Europe and America that a competition was to be held for an essay and plans for the erection of the sanatorium. There was no restriction as to the nationality of the entrants, and they might be either from medical men or jointly from a medic and an architect (but not just from architects). The sanatorium was to provide for 100 patients, equally divided between the sexes, of which 88 beds were to be for the ‘necessitous classes’ the remaining 12 set aside for the well-to-do. All the accommodation was to be comfortable, with a single room for each patient, though with ‘superior arrangements’ being made for the wealthy patients. The building was to have the latest sanitary fittings and have facilities for scientific research. Entries were to be anonymous, but have a motto to distinguish them. The king was to provide £800 in prize money, awarding £500 for the best entry, then £200 and £100 for second and third place.
Arthur Latham deposited this bound edition of his prize-winning entry in the library of the Royal College of Physicians. It has been digitised by the internet archive
There were 180 entries, and the winners were announced in August 1902. The top prize went to Dr Arthur Latham of London and William West, architect, also from London (motto – ‘Give him air, he’ll straight be well’). Second prize went to Dr F. J. Wethered with Messrs Law and Allen, architects, also all from London (motto – ‘If preventable, why not prevented?’), and third prize to Dr E. C. Morland with Mr G. Morland, architect, both of Croydon (motto – ‘Vis Medicatrix naturae’, roughly ‘the healing power of nature’, a motto associated with the nature cure movement). On the architectural side, these were not well-known names. There were four honourable mentions, amongst whom were some better-known architects: Dr P. S. Hichens of Northampton submitted his essay in association with the architect Robert Weir Schultz, and Dr Jane Walker with Smith & Brewer. The only non-English entrant that featured in this list was the celebrated Dr Karl Turban of Davos whose architect was J. Gros. The final honourable mention went to Dr J. P. Wills of Bexhill, with Mr Wills, architect, London.
In the mean time the site had been chosen, at Midhurst in Sussex (now West Sussex). But the commission to design the new sanatorium did not go to Latham’s little-known architect William West, but to H. Percy Adams, presumably considered a safer pair of hands as he was already a well-experienced hospital architect. Since 1898 Charles Holden had been in Adams’ practice, and the final design for Midhurst Sanatorium bears the hallmarks of Holden’s characteristic style.
Aerial perspective of the ‘King’s Sanatorium’ as designed by H. Percy Adams and Charles Holden in 1902, published in Academy Architecture, 1903
To assist them in drawing up the design Adams and Holden had the benefit of Latham and West’s essay and plans, but they also visited sanatoria in Germany and Switzerland – Edward VII had been particularly impressed by the sanatorium at Falkenstein in Germany. The aerial perspective above shows the arrangement of the building. The patients were to occupy the shallow-V-shaped range to the right, which faced south, behind which was a U-plan administration block. These two ranges were linked by a central corridor. The admin block contained suites of offices, the committee room and service rooms, as well as an operating theatre, X-ray and casualty rooms, laboratories, a medical library, and the patients’ dining hall.
Plan from Latham and West’s essay. Their preferred scheme was to provide separate blocks for the wealthy and necessitous patients, this plan being the block for the more wealthy patients.
This was Latham & West’s alternative plan, which housed the wealthy and necessitous in one building. Both plans have elements in common with the designs drawn up by Adams & Holden.
Edward VII retained his interest in the progress of the sanatorium, laying the foundation stone on 3 November 1903. Delays in construction, in part over the water supply, caused the king some vexation, but it was finally opened on 13 June 1906.
The main front of the sanatorium, photographed in June 1992
The patients’ wing to the south was symmetrically arranged with a taller central block of three storeys. The ground floor breaks forward, its flat roof providing a terrace for the rooms on the first floor. Within were two spacious recreation rooms on the ground floor, one either side of the central corridor which marked the division of the sexes (males on the west, females on the east side). There were also hydro-therapy rooms flanking the garden entrance. Each patient had a separate room, as the original competition rules had required.
Photograph of the sanatorium taken c.1950. (Image kindly supplied by W. Parker.)
The rooms faced south and opened on to a terrace or balcony. Bathrooms and WCs were provided in sanitary towers to the north of the patients’ corridor that ran along the back of their rooms and at the far ends of the building. The wealthier or higher class patients had slightly larger rooms with private balconies situated in the central range, while the lower-class patients occupied the wings.
Detail of the central gabled bay, June 1992
One of the stone alcoves on the south front, which provided a secluded shelter
The furnishings and fittings combined hygienic and aesthetic requirements. Washable wallpaper was used in the patients’ bedrooms, an early use of this new product in England, and the floors were of wood blocks. Moulmein teak was used for the staircases which was less susceptible to fire than other, coarser grained wood. The dining-hall and kitchen walls were lined with Doulton’s Carrara tiles.
Postcard with aerial view of the sanatorium. (Image kindly supplied by W. Parker.)
A formal garden was designed for the area to the south of the main building by the horticulturalist Gertrude Jekyll. Her layout, of gardens built on terraces on several levels, with buttressed stone walls separating one level from another, follows closely the scheme indicated by Adams in his perspective drawing. Lawns and flower beds were laid out on the terraces, and various shrubs, flowers and aromatic herbs were planted, many supplied personally by Jekyll. She also designed small gardens to fill the spaces between the administration block and the patients’ wings, again following closely Adams’ original designs. The work was carried out under Jekyll’s direction by two gardeners aided by some of the patients.
Sources A. Latham The Prize Essay on the erection of a sanatorium for tuberculosis… 1903 Academy Architecture, 1903, ii, pp.116-9 F. Allibone, typescript notes to collection of drawings by Adams, Holden & Pearson in RIBA Drawings Collection The Builder, 23 May 1903, pp.531-2; 22 April 1905, pp.440; 23 June 1906, p.707 Building News, 27 May 1904, p.761 Kelly’s Directory of Sussex 1934, 1934, p.243 S. E. Large, King Edward VII Hospital Midhurst 1901-1986, 1986 I. Nairn & N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Sussex, 1965
see also urbexer’s exploration of the site from 2012 on 28dayslater
Postcard of Woodend Hospital dating from the First World War when it had been taken over as a military hospital. The card shows a concert being given in front of the main entrance block.
Woodend Hospital in Aberdeen was constructed as a Poor Law Institution, designed by the local firm of Brown & Watt, it opened on 15 May 1907 and was one of the last poorhouses to be built in Scotland. During the First World War the institution was taken over as a Military Hospital (from 24th May 1915 to 1st June 1919). The postcard above shows a concert underway, there is no message written on the back to give a clue as to when exactly the concert took place. It may have been the one described in the Aberdeen Evening Express in September 1915 when the band and pipers of the Scots Guards visited Aberdeen. From 11am to 12 noon they entertained the wounded soldiers and a small party of ladies and gentlemen, there being about 500 persons present. The band arrived at the hospital in motor buses supplied by the Suburban Tramways Company, and on arrival set up near the front entrance in the quadrangle. Band and pipers played alternately, and there was a cornet solo of ‘The Rosary’ and from ‘Il Trovatore’ played from the veranda.
Detail of the postcard, bottom right, showing some of the audience of the concert
One member of the audience was apparently more interested in the photographer than the concert. The local Aberdeen newspapers published during the First World War carry many mentions of Oldmill, most concern the numbers of wounded arriving by train in the city and thence out to the hospital. There were also appeals for wheeled chairs and books, and numerous accounts of entertainments and concerts laid on for the wounded men.
A detail of the centre of the postcard showing the main entrance to Oldmill Hospital and the band performing in front
Zooming in on the centre of the postcard shows the band arranged in front of the main entrance, with patients and nurses looking on from open windows and the balconies. I don’t know whether the uniforms here are plausible as Scots Guards, they are perhaps too indistinct to be able to tell. The Gordon Highlanders also gave an open air concert, in September 1916.
Most of the concerts took place in the evening inside the large dining hall, some were small affairs with local folks performing a medley of songs, some were given by theatre companies. There were lectures (two on mountaineering), and in October 1915 a ‘talking machine entertainment’ comprising selections given on the Edison phonograph ‘greatly appreciated by all’. The Aberdeen Sailors’ Mission Choir gave the very first concert at Oldmill in July 1915, only weeks after the first patients arrived on 25 June. An ambulance train had arrived at Aberdeen Joint Station shortly after 4am with 100 wounded soldiers from the battlefields of France and Flanders, 83 of whom were transferred to Oldmill.
Postcard of Oldmill Military Hospital, Aberdeen produced during the First World War
This is another postcard produced during the war – copies of it often surface on eBay. The institution was still relatively new when war was declared, and it was with reluctance that the parish council relinquished it to the military, but when the need for more hospital accommodation for the wounded became urgent the council yielded. Many of the poorhouse inmates were evacuated to Rosemount and Westfield schools, which had also been commandeered to take the war wounded, others were boarded out.
Detail of the postcard, showing the bridge part way along the long entrance drive
The notice on the right gives the weight limit that the bridge could withstand at just over 3 tons. The map below shows the hospital complex in the 1920s, after it had been returned to the parochial authorities. The bridge pictured above crossed a roadway that provided access to two detached buildings in the grounds. I think these may have been the nurses’ home and the Governor’s house, but more research is needed to establish whether that is so or not. Although I am fairly confident that the left-hand building was the nurses’ home, a later map marks a tennis court next to it.
Extract from the 2nd edition OS map, revised in 1924. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
The hospital continues in use by NHS Grampian though now its main entrance is on the North side from Eday Road. It is a handsome building, certainly a fine example of its type despite the parsimony of the parochial board. When the plans for the poorhouse were reported by the Aberdeen Daily Journal readers were assured that,
‘As the general view of the poorhouse to most people will be from the Skene Road, a few hundred yards away, it is not intended that any expense should be put upon fine masonry details, and the effect of a satisfactory composition will, therefore, be obtained by means of grouping of the various buildings and arranging them in such a fashion as to give a suitable yet dignified appearance to the whole.’ [Aberdeen Daily Journal, 22 Nov 1901, p.5]
Sources: Aberdeen Evening Express, 17 May 1915, p.5: Aberdeen Journal, 25 May 1915, p.4, 26 May 1915, p.4, 26 June 1915, p.2, 16 July 1915 p.6: Aberdeen Evening Express, 13 Sept 1915, 11 Oct 1915: Aberdeen Weekly Journal, 22 Sept 1916: site visited as part of the Scottish Hospitals Survey 1988-90
Recently I bought this post-card of the chapel at the King Edward VII Sanatorium, Midhurst, and was both surprised and puzzled to find what I assume to be a coded message on the back. The postmark is Aldershot, 7 August 1912, another puzzle as it suggests that the postcard was not sent from the hospital. If anyone has any idea how to translate the code I would be very grateful for any clues or explanations.
The puzzling message on a 1912 postcard to Miss Goddard of Ufton Green from ‘J’. A search in the census found a Georgina Goddard, born about 1887, who grew up on her Grandfather’s farm at Ufton in Berkshire and was living at the farm with her parents in 1911.
I had no idea about the message when I bought the card, it was the photograph of the chapel that I was interested in. The former Midhurst Sanatorium is one of the finest examples of this type of hospital. It was designed by H. Percy Adams and Charles Holden and was opened by Edward VII in 1906. The King had founded, and funded, the sanatorium which was for paying patients suffering from tuberculosis not wealthy enough to seek treatment abroad. Edward VII had been impressed with sanatoria on the Continent and their open air regimes.
Not the best snap, but it gives an idea of the unusual V-shaped plan which created two naves stretching out from a central chancel under the squat tower. At the centre is an open-air pulpit – seen more clearly in the photograph below.
In 1901 the King formed an advisory committee comprising eminent physicians and authorities on the treatment of tuberculosis. It was decided to hold a competition, not for the design of a sanatoria, but for an essay on the subject, and was aimed at members of the medical profession as much as, or even rather than architects. The competition was won by Dr Arthur Latham and the architect William West of London, Robert Weir Schultz gained an honourable mention, but the commission went to H. Percy Adams. Adams was able to consult the winning entry before drawing up his plans and also visited several sanatoria in Germany and Switzerland.
Open-air pulpit at the Midhurst Sanatorium chapel, from which the chaplain could address a garden congregation. The arcade in front of the arched windows lighting the nave provided shade or shelter, as the windows originally were unglazed.
Looking across from one arcade to the other. The main sanatorium building can just be glimpsed to the right of the photograph.
Looking down one of the arcades
The entrance to the west nave, off-set from the nave behind. It has a commanding and solid presence, faced in stone with a chequerboard band below the parapet.
The idea of designing an open-air chapel did not come from Adams and Holden, it had been suggested by the Advisory Committee, but without any clear indication of what form it should take. The twin naves Adams and Holden designed allowed for the division of men from women, and the V-shaped or half-butterfly plan is common to sanatoria and some country houses as it produced a sun-trap.
The tall arched openings leading out to the arcade were originally unglazed and open to the elements, so that even while attending a chapel service patients could continue their open-air regime. The glazing was added in 1957 designed by Brian Poulter, the hospital’s consulting architect.
In an open-air chapel, heating was important and here a system of under-floor heating was provided. It comprised steam pipes which warmed the stone floor, and was similar to that used at Eppendorf Hospital, Hamburg.
The chancel is octagonal and domed, the pulpit, lectern and altar have carved teak and inlaid ebony detailing.
Another view of the chancel. The walls of Bath stone are finely jointed ashlar and the floor is of York stone.
Sir John Brickwood, brewer of Portsmouth, provided the £25,000 to build the chapel, which opened at the same time as the hospital in 1906. His wife, Lady Jessie Brickwood, embroidered an intricate altar cloth that had a central figure of Christ flanked by the emblems of the four evangelists set against scrolling foliage. (There is a picture of the altar with its altar cloth on Brickwoods.co.uk, with much more information on the family)
The rear of the chapel. Although the later extension to the right detracts a little from the impact of this elevation, the tower is still impressive with its graded stripes and patterns in the brickwork and the boldness of its composition, suggestive of the talents of Charles Holden.
Sources
RCHME Report on King Edward VII Hospital, NBR No. 101270, written by H. Richardson and C. Thom November 1992, for which the following sources were used: Academy Architecture, 1903, ii, 116-9: Allibone, F, typescript notes to collection of drawings by Adams, Holden & Pearson in RIBA Drawings Collection: The Builder, 23 May 1903, 531-2; 22 April 1905, 440; 23 June 1906, 707: Building News, 27 May 1904, 761: Kelly’s Directory of Sussex 1934, 1934, 243: Large, S E, 1986. King Edward VII Hospital Midhurst 1901-1986: Nairn, I & Pevsner, N, 1965. The Buildings of England: Sussex: Recent English Ecclesiastical Architecture, 2nd ed, 212-6
The Twelfth Night entertainment at the Hanwell Lunatic Asylum. Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images from the Illustrated London News, 15 Jan 1848 reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0
Twelfth Night for many people is now just the date in the calendar when we take the Christmas decorations down. In our house this usually includes a certain amount of confusion as to whether twelfth night is on the 5th or the 6th of January. As I write this, it is January 5th 2023, the boxes are out ready for me to pack away the tree (a plastic one that we have re-used for at least the past 15 years) and the decorations.
Marking the end of the twelve days of Christmas and the coming of Epiphany, Twelfth Night was part of the festivities and often celebrated with a feast. The illustration above shows a dance and a feast that took place in celebration of Twelfth Night on January 6th 1848 at Hanwell Asylum (the county pauper lunatic asylum for Middlesex, at Hanwell, to the west of London). The entertainment was just for the male patients, the women had been given a similar festivity on New Year’s Eve.
OS 6-inch map, surveyed in 1864, showing the ‘County Lunatic Asylum’ for Middlesex, now largely converted to private housing. CC-BY (NLS)
The Twelfth Night party was held in the gallery of ward 9, and about 250 patients, staff and guests were assembled. The Gallery was decorated with evergreens, devices and mottoes, with coloured lamps hanging from the ceiling, while the gas-burners that usually lit the gallery were altered to ‘appear like ornamental fan-lights’. The entertainment began with coffee and cake at about 4.30pm, after which there was music making by some and games played by others – cards, draughts, dominoes and bagatelle. Supper was served at 8pm and comprised roast beef and vegetables, ‘with an allowance of beer and tobacco’. [1]
In the foreground of the illustration were the dancers, and the right hand figure was a portrait of William Rayner, a former actor best known for his role as Harlequin which he played at Covent Garden opposite his wife’s Columbine. After his wife died he ‘took to fretting’ and was committed to the asylum. By 1848 he had been a patient at Hanwell for about seventeen years. He was always ready to cut a caper for the amusement of his fellow patients: a ‘fine old jovial-looking man, dressed in a mixed costume, crowned with a motley cap, bedizened with various coloured ribands’. [2]
Photograph of part of the site in 2008 on Geographtaken by J. Taylor
The photograph above shows part of the site, now known as ‘Osterley Views’. I wonder how many of the folks who live there now are also taking down Christmas decorations just now, or might know about the celebrations that took place there 175 years ago.
William Rayner is easily confused with his better-known contemporary Lionel Benjamin Rayner, who played at Covent Garden at the same time.
[1] Illustrated London News, 15 Jan 1848, p.27 [2] London Evening Standard, 18 May 1843, p.2
After the feasting and convivial drinking over Christmas and the New Year, a dry January has become increasingly common. The adverse effects of alcohol on our health are widely known and understood today, as are the benefits of keeping well hydrated, preferably by drinking plenty of water. These twin truths go a long way to explain why hydropathic establishments and spas have survived long after other institutions offering specialist treatments have either disappeared or remain rare. Sea-bathing, anti-vivisection, galvanic, and mesmeric hospitals all had their promoters and supporters from the eighteenth into the twentieth centuries, though widely condemned by the medical profession. But a water cure, particularly if it was balanced with exercise in country air and abstinence from alcohol, did few any harm and benefitted many.
Shandon Hydro, Helensburgh, image from National Library of Congress. West Shandon House, built in 1851, was altered and greatly extended by Peddie & Kinnear in the 1870s to turn it into a fairy tale castle of a hydropathic establishment.
Spas and Hydropathic establishments are generally set in attractive locations, occupying imposing buildings, and have not been neglected by historians. Health tourism has been studied both from an architectural and historical perspective in recent years. [1] Hydros had their heyday in Scotland in the later nineteenth century, the Shandon Hydro at Helensburgh and the Dunblane Hydro were both built to designs by Peddie & Kinnear in the 1870s. By that time they had become popular as health resorts and were often closely linked to the temperance movement. They attracted the healthy as well as the invalid, and water treatments began to subside in importance. Unsurprisingly, in terms of architectural planning later hydros were little different from hotels, only the treatment rooms set them apart.
The water cure had been introduced into Britain from the Continent in the mid-nineteenth century, as a separate medical strand from taking the waters at a Spa. For the water cure primarily concerned water as an external treatment, with baths, douches and other inventive ways of applying water to the body. Hydropathy was big business in England and Wales before it gained much ground in Scotland. The first hydropathic establishments north of the border were small, located at Rothesay, Dunoon and Aberdeen. [2]
Graefenberg, Hydropathic Establishment of Vincent Priessnitz, from the Wellcome Library reproduced under under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0
At Rothesay the hydro was set up in 1843 by Dr William Paterson who had visited Vincent Priessnitz, the founder of the water cure movement, at Graefenberg. Paterson’s hydropathic establishment occupied Glenburn House, overlooking Rothesay Bay on the Isle of Bute. The house was converted to provide accommodation for just ‘a few invalids’. [2] Unlike Priessnitz, Paterson combined the ‘judicious use of medicine’ alongside cold water in his treatments. The hydro was successful and underwent a number of additions before it was rebuilt in the 1890s following a fire. [3]
Glenburn Hydro, Rothesay from Wilson’s Guide to Rothesay and the Isle of Bute, 1848
The short-lived hydro at Dunoon was established in 1846 by another Scottish doctor who had been directly inspired by Priesstnitz, Dr Rowland East. It too was in a converted house, which was situated near the recently built Kirn Pier, on the banks of the Clyde. Here water treatment was combined with a regime of sea-water bathing. The third hydro, opened at Aberdeen in 1850, was perhaps the most influential, but it was begun not by a doctor but a churchman, the Reverend Alexander Munro. Munro belonged to the Evangelical Union, and his interest in hydropathy was very much a product of his faith, providing scope for ministering to both the physical and spiritual needs of his flock. [4]
Extract from the 1st edition OS map, surveyed in 1867, showing the Aberdeen hydro at Loch-head, (just west of the Royal Lunatic Asylum). Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland. Alexander Munro moved the hydro here in 1853 from Angusfield, where he had begun his hydropathic establishment in 1850. [5]
Munro’s Aberdeen hydro proved sufficiently successful to warrant additions to the house at Loch-head. He built a new wing ‘of three storeys, two of these having fine oriel windows’. The new wing contained a dining room, drawing room and recreation room in addition to further bedrooms. Later he added a Turkish bath, in moorish style. In 1864 Munro left for the new Cluny Hills Hydro and his position at Loch-head was filled by Dr Meikle, for whom it proved a stepping stone to founding a new purpose-built hydro at Crieff.
The Allan Water Hydropathic establishment was built in 1861-4 to designs by a lesser Glasgow architect James Hamilton, and was an early work in his career. Soon after he was commissioned to design the West of Scotland Seaside Home at Dunoon (later remodelled as the Dunoon Hydro), the Glasgow Hydropathic and Turkish Bath, and possibly designed extensions to the Glenburn Hydro, Rothesay. James, his son John and grandson Arthur were all closely associated with Rothesay and designed a number of villas thereabouts.
The Hydro at Crieff is possibly the best known Scottish hydro, and one of the few to survive as a hotel to this day. It was first opened as the Strathearn Hydro in 1868, built for the not inconsiderable sum of £30,000 and founded by Dr Thomas Henry Meikle, on the back of the success of the Loch-head hydro at Aberdeen. The original building was designed by Robert Ewan, an architect and engineer who was commissioned in 1866 while still working as an assistant architect to J. Russell Mackenzie in Aberdeen. The early success of the establishment is attested by the almost immediate need to extend the accommodation, first with attic bedrooms in 1872, then in 1875 the dining and drawing rooms were extended. Further substantial additions were made in 1888 and 1894, and a winter garden was added in 1903-5. Ewan and his architect sons, Robert and Charles, were retained for these additional works. They were not foremost amongst Scottish architects, and the hydro is not the finest piece of architectural design, but it has distinct charm and a lively roofline of turrets and gables.
The Winter Garden from Strathearn Hydro’s souvenir brochure produced in the 1950s.
During the Second World War the Strathearn Hydro at Crieff was requisitioned by the army, it partially re-opened in 1949 and after refurbishment a souvenir brochure was produced to entice new visitors and encourage former guests to return. It advertised various sports: golf, tennis and croquet out of doors, billiards and a swimming-pool in doors. It also boasted 58 separate ‘lock-up’ compartments for motor cars. The medical side had not been entirely abandoned, there was a physiotherapy department, which it was hoped would prove increasingly helpful in the treatment of rheumatism ‘and in the restoration of function’. [6] It remained dry, though, until the 1970s, when the management finally applied for a table licence. [2]
References [1] Phyllis Hembry, British Spas from 1815 to the Present… 1997: J.Bradley, M. Dupree, and A. Durie ‘Taking the Water-Cure: The Hydropathic Movement in Scotland, 1840-1940’ in Business and Economic History, vol.26 no.2, Winter 1997 pp.426-37: James Bradley ‘Medicine on the margins? Hydropathy and orthodoxy in Britain, 1840-60’ in Waltraud Ernst ed, Plural Medicine, Tradition and Modernity 1800-2000, Routledge, 2002: Allan Brodie, Travel and Tourism in Britain, 1700 – 1914, 2014: Eric Zeulow, A History of Modern Tourism, 2015. [2] Alastair J. Durie, Water is Best The Hydros and Health Tourism in Scotland 1840-1940, 2006 [3] John Wilson, Wilson’s Guide to Rothesay and the Isle of Bute, 1848: Richard Metcalfe, The rise and progress of hydropathy in England and Scotland, 1906, p.157 [4] Alastair J. Durie ‘”The drugs, the blister and the lancet are all laid aside” Hydropathy and medical orthodoxy in Scotland, 1840-1900’ in Repositioning Victorian Sciences: Shifting Centres in 19th century… D. Clifford, E. Wadge, A. Warwick, M. Willis eds, 2006 [5] ‘Aberdeen in Byegone Days’, Aberdeen Journal, 30 Sept 1909, p.2 [6] Strathearn Hydropathic Crieff, souvenir brochure printed by David Philips, Crieff, n.d. but describes the hydro as being 90 years old.
Celebrating Christmas with entertainments and a special dinner was introduced into the workhouse and even prisons before it was provided in pauper lunatic asylums. It only seems to have become widespread from about the 1850s.
Entertainment to the patients at the Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum, Colney Hatch. This was a New Year’s celebration, but the dancing and the decoration with flags were typical of the entertainments held for Christmas. Illustrated London News, 15 Jan 1853. Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images Image reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0
According to the Chelmsford Chronicle reporting on the Christmas festivities at the Essex County Asylum in 1858, it was only in recent years that ‘the poor lunatic’ was thought capable of appreciating the ‘social enjoyments’ associated with the season: ‘it is one of the humane discoveries of modern medical science, that he is far more successfully worked upon by the music of the kind word than by the rattle of the iron chain.’ [1]
The County Lunatic Asylum, Brentwood, Essex: bird’s eye view. Wood engraving by W.E. Hodgkin, 1857, after H.E. Kendall. Wellcome Library, London.Essex County Asylum was designed by H. E. Kendall in 1849 and completed in 1853. Originally for between 400 and 500 patients it was extended many times. Two of the earliest additions were a dining-hall in 1863 and a recreation hall in 1879. The asylum was later renamed Warley Hospital. It closed in 2001. The Builder, 16 May 1857 Wellcome Images Image reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0
On Christmas day at the Essex Asylum one of the wards was fitted up as a dining hall, the ward itself measuring some seventy feet in length and seating 230 inmates. The walls were decorated with flags and evergreens in ‘tasteful devices’… ‘while forty ponderous plum puddings and 350 lbs of roast beef smoked upon the tables’. In addition to the dinner there was a musical evening held in the recreation hall, which was decorated for the occasion. A Mrs Campbell supplied 1,200 artificial flowers which the patients had interwoven into figures and festoons of laurel. Sketches from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the Essex arms and portraits of the Indian heroes Havelock and Wilson also formed an unlikely combination of pictorial decoration in the hall, all painted or drawn by the patients. The orchestra, too, was composed of patients, who supplied the music for the country dances. Between dances patients amused the company with songs and recitations. [1]
From the late 1850s the number of newspaper reports of similar entertainments elsewhere in Britain began to grow, these were often occasions attended by the local gentry. At the Birmingham Borough Asylum the Christmas festivities comprised country dancing, singing and games on Christmas eve. During the evening ‘an immense circle was formed for ‘drop the glove’. Half an hour of exciting fun was the result’. There was also a ‘jingling match’ and a jumping match. A female patient with an ‘exceedingly melodious voice’ sang Where are you going to, my pretty maid? and amidst the music and activities, spiced ale and plum-cake were served for refreshment. The Christmas dinner featured roast beef, plum pudding and ‘various seasonable accessories’. Entertainments continued nightly throughout the week with amateurs from the town visiting the asylum to provide vocal and instrumental music. One evening there was an exhibition of ‘dissolving views’. [2]
In the 1880s similar entertainments were reported at the Guernsey asylum, where games included musical chairs and candle-buff. [3]
Sources
[1] Chelmsford Chronicle, 1 Jan 1858, p.3 [2] Birmingham Daily Post, 27 Dec 1859, p.3 [3] The Star, Guernsey, 1 Jan 1889, p.2
In December 1992 Robert Taylor circulated the ninth edition of his newsletter amongst his colleagues working on the Royal Commission’s hospitals project. In this issue he provided more useful source material on isolation hospitals from Parliamentary Papers: a ‘Sanitary Survey’ undertaken in 1893-5 and the annual report of the Local Government Board of 1914-15, which highlighted the problems encountered in municipal hospital provision during the first year of the war.
The Sanitary Survey covered England and Wales and was prompted by ‘the ever recurring source of danger’ to Britain of cholera spreading from the continent. Publication of the inland survey was delayed following a ‘serious accident’ which befell Dr Frederick W. Barry, Senior Medical Inspector of the Local Government Board, who was supervising the work. A year later he died suddenly, it was presumed from the injury he sustained. The inland survey followed one on the ‘Port and Riparian Districts of England and Wales’ submitted in September 1895. When attention was turned inland, districts where the purity of the water supply was in doubt were investigated as a priority and then districts in which the administration was believed to be defective or ‘in which former experience had shown that filth diseases prevailed’.
The late Dr F. W. Barry, from The Graphic, 23 Oct 1897, p.17. Barry had struck his head on a stone doorway causing severe injury to his skull the previous year. He died suddenly after he had retired to bed at the Grand Hotel, Birmingham, and was found the following morning by the chambermaid.
The actual work of inspection was conducted under Barry’s supervision by a team of doctors in the LGB Medical Department. The bulk of the sites were covered by Dr Bruce Low, Dr Fletcher, Dr Reece, Dr Wilson, and Dr Wheaton, a few were inspected by the late T. W. Thompson, Dr Sweeting, Dr Theodore Thomson, Dr Coleman, Dr Bulstrode, Dr Horne and Mr Evan Evans (surely one of the inspectors of Welsh hospitals). Each inspector was given a set of forms containing questions as to the general sanitary circumstances of the district, its sanitary administration and cholera precautions.
Under the first of these three headings the inspectors were to report on the condition of dwellings and their surroundings, the purity and sufficiency of the water supply, the efficiency of public sewage, domestic drainage and sewage disposal, methods of excrement and refuse disposal and removal, and the condition and nature of supervision over registered premises and trades. As regarded ‘sanitary administration’ the inspectors were to report on the general character and efficiency of the administration of the local sanitary authority, noting the bylaws, regulations and adoptive Acts in force. They were also to report on the work done by the local Medical Officer of Health and Inspector of Nuisances, and on the provisions made for dealing with infectious diseases and ‘infected articles’.
As to ‘Cholera Precautions’ the inspectors were instructed to ascertain what general arrangements existed in each district to deal with an outbreak of cholera and what special arrangements had been made for action in an emergency. Detailed reports were made and submitted to the local sanitary authorities together with recommendations for improvements. Only the detailed reports for Sunderland were reproduced in the Report, for the other districts abstracts were published.
The inspection of the County Borough of Sunderland was made on 19 April 1894, the district covered Sunderland, Bishopwearmouth, South Bishopwearmouth and Monkwearmouth with a population in 1891 of 131,015. The chief industries were shipbuilding, engineering, mining, seafaring and glass-blowing. The sewers are described in detail and house drainage. There were an estimated 4,000 water closets and 1,100 ‘tub closets’ (galvanised iron tubs) in the district, but the majority of houses used privy middens which were found to be mostly of a ‘very defective type’. The local Medical Officer of Health was John Caudell Wood, who was paid a salary of £500 p.a. with an additional £20 as Port Medical Officer of Health and £5 as Public Analyst. He was described as having a good knowledge of his district but ‘wanting in judgment’, and therefore ‘cannot be regarded as a very satisfactory officer’.
Extracts from the 6-inch OS map of Sunderland published in 1898. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
Sunderland Isolation Hospital was found to be a good brick building for 42 patients, situated on an isolated site about two miles north-west of the Town Hall. (This is probably what became Havelock Hospital east site, formerly Sunderland Borough Infectious Diseases Hospital, the west site being formerly the infectious hospital for Sunderland Rural District, situated to the west of Bishopwearmouth cemetery on Hylton Road.) It had been built in 1890, and consisted of two fever pavilions each for 16 beds designed generally on the lines of Plan C of the LGB 1892 memorandum, and an isolation pavilion for 10 beds on the lines of Plan D in the 1888 memorandum. There was also an admin block, with accommodation for 11 nurses and 9 servants as well as a medical officer and matron, a mortuary, post-mortem room, laundry, and disinfecting house.
Emergency plans included arrangements for opening the ‘House of Recovery’ as a cholera hospitals, this had been the old borough fever hospital a the end of Dunning Street near the river and could take about twelve patients.The following is Robert Taylor’s list of the English isolation hospitals noted in the report. The page numbers are those given in the Blue Books, not the report’s pagination. There are some oddities: Bishop Auckland Urban District’s isolation hospital was in converted dog kennels, while at Lyme they set aside a room in a warehouse on the Cobb. At Dudley they had built a hospital comprising three blocks and a tent on a pit mound, which the inspector described as ‘very bad’. It supposedly only had space for six patients, although it had been used for 23 smallpox patients.
Sanitary Survey
The ‘Report on the Inland Sanitary Survey, 1893-95’, by the late F. W. Barry, undertaken for the Local Government Board was published in Parliamentary Papers 1896 XXXVII, pp 669ff. Just how Mr Barry met his death is not recorded, but we trust that it was not a direct result of the time spent investigating hospitals. He presented, albeit posthumously, a series of short descriptions of a sample of infectious diseases hospital visited between 1893 and 1895. A list and summary may be of some use, even if only to show what sort of buildings are missing from our own survey a century later. The abbreviations used are familiar – UD for Urban District, B for Borough, CB for County Borough.
Amble UD. A small cottage is rented for an isolation hospital, an unsatisfactory arrangement. [p.682] Ashby de la Zouch UD. An old barn converted into a four-room cottage, very unsatisfactory. [p.684] Ashton in Makerfield. A small eight-bed hospital, with no accommodation for two diseases in both sexes. [p.685] Bacup B. A converted mill is used in common with Todmorden, Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge UDs. no means of separating two diseases. [p.687] Banbury B. A well-built hospital of 1890. [p.688] Bedlingtonshire UD An old granary converted to isolation hospital, with eight beds; unsatisfactory. [p.694] Berwick on Tweed B. There are two wooden hospitals, one with four beds for the town, one with eight beds for port cases. [p.698] Beverley B. Two hospital tents purchased in 1892. [p.700] Bideford B. A six-bed hospital built in 1885; cannot separate two diseases. [p.701] Bingley UD. Temporary hospitals shared with Keighley UD and RD, for smallpox cases only. [p.703] Bishop Auckland U. Dog kennels converted, with five beds; unsatisfactory. [p.704] Boston B. A converted farmhouse with 12 beds, used jointly with the Rural and Port authorities. [p.706] Brandon and Byshottles UD. A temporary hospital built in 1891 with 16 beds; cannot isolate two diseases in both sexes. [p.707] Bridport B. Temporary wooden hospital provided for cholera in 1866. [p.710] Burton on Trent B. Three temporary hospitals; a permanent 30-bed hospitals being built in August 1893. [p.714] Calne B. With Calne RD has a well-arranged hospital of 10 beds built in 1889. [p.716] Carlisle B. Sixteen beds are provided permanently at Crozier Lodge Hospital, and further 16 are reserved. [p.719] Chesterfield B. An unsatisfactory 10-bed hospital. [p.723] Clay Cross. A four-ward building for smallpox on an old pit heap, used as two cottages in May 1894. [p.724] Darlaston U. A house was purchased in 1885 and a tent was recently bought. Very unsatisfactory.[p.737] Doncaster B. An old dilapidated house for smallpox, very unsuitable. In 1892 temporary wooden buildings were erected for cholera, but it is only used for the families of smallpox victims. [p.741] Dronfield U. Four four-room cottages have recently been bought, but were unfurnished in May 1894. [p.744] Dudley CB. The Infectious Diseases Hospital consists of three blocks and a tent on a pit mound, and is very bad. There is only space for six patients, but it was used for 23 smallpox patients. [p.745] Durham B. An iron hospital being built in June 1894, very unsatisfactory. [p.746] {Is this by any chance the hospital supplied by Humphreys of Knightsbridge some time before 1914?} East Retford. A farmhouse, only suitable for one disease at a time. [p.747] Exeter CB. There are two ward blocks, one of wood and cement with four wards, one of brick and stone with two wards. Unsatisfactory and crowded.[p.753] Faversham B. A brick hospital, with an administration building, a ward block with two wards each 10 by 13 feet and 13 feet high, and outbuildings. [p.756] Gainsborough UD. Hospital consists of an administration building, two ward pavilions of brick, and a temporary wooden ward block. Apparently only used for smallpox. [p.759] Great Yarmouth. Hospital being erected November 1893. [p.767] Harwich B. Hospital at Dovercourt, built in 1882 with eight beds. [p.770] Hastings CB. A building was purchased in 1874 and has 35 beds. Later a 30-bed iron hospital was bought for smallpox. The site is inadequate. [p.771] Havant UD. Hospital shared with Havant RD, consists of two ward blocks, with 16 beds. [p.772] Heanor UD. An eight-room cottage, used for smallpox; unsatisfactory. [p.775] Heath Town UD. A temporary 10-bed smallpox building was recently erected with Wednesfield UDC. [p.777] Hereford B. A 16-bed corrugated iron hospital built in 1893; unsatisfactory. [p.779] {Another Humphreys hospital?} Herne Bay UD. Two cottages bought in 1891; unsatisfactory. [p.780] Huntingdon B. An old brick house called the ‘Pest House’ with five beds, very unsatisfactory. [p.790] {Built in 1760 for £95 15s and now demolished} Ilfracombe UD. A farmhouse at Mullacott for four patients, and a private house at Ilfracombe for six patients; very unsatisfactory. [p.793] Ilkeston B. An 18-bed temporary wooden building provided in 1888 during a smallpox epidemic. [p.795] Ipswich CB. Satisfactory 36-bed hospital. [p.796] Keighley B. Keighley and B. J. H. B. have a temporary smallpox hospital. [p.797] Lincoln CB. Temporary wooden building for smallpox cases. [p.805] Longton B. An old cottage used for smallpox cases. [p.810] Loughborough B. A cottage is rented as a hospital; unsatisfactory. [p.811] Lyme B. A room in a warehouse on the Cobb. [p.817] Margate B. Temporary 44-bed hospital at Northwood, shared with Ramsgate and Broadstairs. [p.819] Maryport UD. A 4-bed hospital built on the model plan. [p.821] Millom UD. A temporary hospital near the pier is used for cholera. [p.824] Newark on Trent B. A 6-bed wooden hospital. [p.831] Newbold and Dunston UD. A 12-bed temporary hospital used for smallpox cases only. [p.832] Newcastle under Lyme B. An 18-bed hospitals built in 1872, now dilapidated. [p.834] New Romney B. A temporary 12-bed iron hospital built in 1893, unsatisfactory. [p.837] Northam UD. A temporary iron and wood hospital near Appledore, with no fittings, water supply, etc. [p.838] Norwich. An excellent hospital completed in 1893. [p.840] Oldbury UD. Smallpox hospital is a block of cottages leased by the Authority; unsatisfactory. [p.842] Ormskirk UD. Hospital of four wards and six beds in one acre, built shortly before March 1894. [p.843] Pemberton UD. One pavilion containing four wards and eight beds, built in 1886. [p.845] Penrith UD. Hospital has two pavilions with 12 beds. In 1894 a new hospital building of two pavilions with eight beds, set in 2.5 acres. [p.848] Poole B. Permanent hospital of 6 beds built in 1875. A temporary smallpox hospital built in 1886, with poor fencing. [p.850] Runcorn UD. Two wards with 12 beds, built in 1881. Temporary building with 20 beds for smallpox cases erected on same site. [p.858] Salford CB. Hospital at Ladywell built in 1884 with 5 pavilions set in 13 acres. Also a modern smallpox hospitals with 50 beds. [p.864] Shipley UD. A ten-bed hospital at Stoney Ridge built according to the Board’s model plan. [p.872] Shrewsbury B. An emergency hospital built in 1893 with two wards each with 3 beds, of iron lined with wood. Very unsatisfactory. [p.873] Sidmouth UD. Wooden 10-bed hospital built in 1884, with no furniture, and which has never been used. [p.874] Sittingbourne UD. A satisfactory 24-bed hospitals built in 1884. [p.876] Stalybridge B. A building bought in 1888 and partly fitted up but never used. [p.887] Stockport CB. Hospital with 28 beds in two pavilions, each with three wards, opened in 1881. A separate smallpox hospital at Whitehall. [p.891] Truro B. St Mary’s Parish Workhouse fitted up, suitable for one disease only. [p.906] Warrington B. A satisfactory 40-bed hospitals built in 1877. [p.916] Widnes B. A satisfactory 24-bed hospital built in 1887. [p.920] Wigan CB. A satisfactory 60-bed hospital built in 1889. [p.921] Workington B. The old workhouse used, unsatisfactory. [p.927]
Isolation Hospitals
The Annual Report of the Local Government Board for 1914-15 (P.P. 1914-15 XXV, 29-30) gives some interesting information about hospitals. It is also interesting for referring to the conflict as the Great War as early as 1915.
In the early months of the First World War, it was discovered that the existing isolation hospital accommodation was often insufficient for the extra military population of the area. This was particularly the case in Eastern Command. In some districts, huts of an army pattern were built in the grounds of existing isolation hospitals by agreement between the local military and the hospital authorities. It was intended that after the war the local authority would buy the building from the military at a percentage of the original cost. These huts did not provide floor space to the requirements of the Local Government Board, and after a meeting with the Board, Eastern Command adopted a design by their architect which was a modification of the Board’s Model D of the Memorandum of May 1902. The pavilion had two ten-bed wards and two one-bed wards, was 24 feet wide, and provided 144 square feet of floor space for each bed.
The War Office built these pavilions at the following hospitals: Biggleswade (1 pavilion); Bedford (1 pavilion); East Grinstead (1 pavilion); Guildford (1 pavilion); Tring (2 pavilions); Chelmsford (1 pavilion); Bletchingley (1 pavilion); Dunstable (1 pavilion); Rochester (1 pavilion); Folkestone (2 pavilions).
Folkestone Isolation Hospital. The two blocks added during the First World War are the pair to the south. Extract from the 2nd edition OS map revised 1937-8, reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
Before this plan was completed, several authorities who objected to the original army hut prepared plans of their own, which were submitted to the LGB in the usual way. These authorities were: Northampton (2 pavilions); Colchester (2 pavilions); Ipswich (2 pavilions); Orsett Joint Hospital Board (1 pavilion).
Of those which came within the area covered by the Cambridge office (where Robert Taylor was based), the two wards built at Ipswich had been demolished, although OS maps showed their distinctive outline (which was the same as the single pavilion built in 1914-15 as the Ipswich Smallpox Hospital). At Northampton there was a pair of pavilions with sanitary annexes with stalks at each end, and the readily identifiable double projections of single wards flanking the duty room. The potentially more interesting military blocks at Bedford, Biggleswade and Dunstable did not survive. The block at Biggleswade appears from maps to have been a plain rectangular structure without any projections for sanitary annexes or duty rooms. The most likely pavilion shown on maps of Biggleswade was another plain rectangular building, with a central rear sanitary annexe with narrow stalk. no building can be identified on maps of Bedford.
The eighth newsletter that Robert Taylor produced from the RCHME Cambridge office was written almost exactly 23 years ago, in November 1992. I was delighted to hear from Robert recently, and to receive his blessing for reproducing his work here. It was good to hear that he would seem to be just as productive in his retirement, and has not lost his interest in hospital buildings in general or the machinations of the Local Government Board in particular.
University College Hospital, designed by Alfred Waterhouse and built between 1897 and 1906. It is now UCL’s Cruciform Building. Image from the Wellcome Library reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0
This issue largely consisted of lists: hospital designs by Alfred Waterhouse, culled from the list of works in Colin Cunningham’s monograph; locations where Humphreys’ patent iron hospitals were erected as given in an advertisement published in 1915; and plans of hospitals published in the aptly named R. Ward’s 1949 book the Design and Equipment of Hospitals. The list of Humphrey’s hospitals has already featured in a separate post which can be found here, the two others are transcribed below.
Apart from the lists we were informed of the novel re-use of the Oxford Smallpox Hospital, a corrugated-iron building with all the characteristics of one of Mr Humphreys’ constructions (1900 catalogue, no.3), which, no longer needed for patients, was the centre of a flourishing enterprise called Spend-a-Penny Event Hire, from which people holding large parties and public entertainments can borrow certain necessary portable buildings. (I can find no reference to this company today, so perhaps the Oxford Smallpox Hospital has finally gone out of use.)
In other news, the Cambridge team had lately visited their first army hospital dating from before the reforms influenced by the Crimean War, and were fascinated by the planning. (Kathryn Morrison, Robert’s partner in crime in the Cambridge team, went on to write the chapter on military hospitals in English Hospitals, 1660-1948: A Survey of Their Architecture and Design.) Here is Robert’s description of the Peninsula Barracks Hospital at Winchester:
‘On each of three storeys were three wards on either side of a central stair. Only the end wards had cross-ventilation. The hospitals remained in use until December 1985, and the fittings on the walls allowed us to see that there had been eleven beds in each of the larger wards, and ten in the smaller ones. The larger wards were paced at 34ft by 19ft and the smaller wards 29ft by 19ft, which gives floor areas for the wards of 646 and 551 sq ft respectively. The height of the wards was not measured (we do not yet have a successful technique for walking up walls), but allowing for a 13ft height gives cubic volumes of 7,163 and 8,398 cubic ft respectively. Miss Nightingale would have been horrified to work out that this means that the beds in the larger wards had 763 cubic feet each, and those in the smaller wards (which were not cross-ventilated properly) a mere 716 cubic feet. Moreover, as the hospital was apparently built for 130 beds this suggests that the beds were more congested in 1985 than in 1855.’
Extract from the 2nd edition OS map revised 1894-5, showing the barracks hospital fronting St James’s Street (now Romsey Road). Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland. The hospital building has been converted to private flats, but some of the other former barracks buildings now form part of Winchester’s Military Museums.
‘The original sanitation was contained in a small room opening off the half-landings of the staircase, but some time early in the present century a larger room was added to this. In addition, a four-foot square sanitary tower was added between each end ward and its neighbour, with a triangular lobby contrived in the wall between the wards to give unventilated access.’
‘This account hardly inspires faith in the care that the army lavished on its cannon fodder, although we should perhaps bear in mind that this was presumably not for usual hospital cases but complaints such as influenza and sore feet that needed to be taken out of the barrack block near by.’
Waterhouse
Works listed in Colin Cunningham and Prudence Waterhouse’s, Alfred Waterhouse, 1830-1905: Biography of a Practice, Clarendon Press, 1992. Although the word hospital is not in the otherwise good index, there is a list of some 647 commissions and works, including nine hospitals. An abstract follows, using the numbers in Cunningham’s list. (Curiously Robert omitted what to me is Waterhouse’s best-known hospital building, the extraordinary cruciform University College Hospital built 1897-1906, replaced by the new UCH on Euston Road, now used by University College London, and shorn of some ugly later additions.)
[111] Manchester Royal Infirmary, Piccadilly, 1861. Renovation and valuation, re-ventilation and design of memorial tablet to J. C. Harter (Office correspondence in private collection). [146] Cheadle, Royal Lunatic Asylum, 1863. Additional villas, cost £2,620. (Drawings and correspondence at RIBA). [210] Macclesfield Infirmary competition, 1865. Withdrew, with compensation. [218] Manchester Royal Infirmary, Piccadilly, 1865. New stables etc. (demolished) cost £340 (Office correspondence etc. in private collection and RIBA). [293] Cheadle, Royal Lunatic Asylum, 1868-9, chapel. (Office archives in private collection). [447] London, University College Hospital, Gower Street, 1877. Sketch plan for rebuilding, not executed. (Office archives in private collection). [488] Liverpool, alterations to old asylum building to form Liverpool University, 1881-3, cost £4,450. (it is not clear from the text what sort of asylum this was). [532] Liverpool Royal Infirmary, hospital, nurses’ home and medical school, 1886-92. Cost £123,500. (Drawings at RIBA and Infirmary)
[571] Manchester, St Mary’s Hospital (demolished), maternity hospital, cost £65,140. Designed 1891, built 1899ff. (Drawings at RIBA). [599] Liverpool University Medical School, extension, 1895-7, cost £1,795. [628] Nottingham General Hospital, Jubilee Wing, 1898. Circular ward block with sanitary tower; laundry; out patients’ department; staircases and lift. (Cited by S. A. Smith in Courtauld theses of 1970 but not corroborated by Cunningham). [630] Rhyl, Royal Alexandra Hospital, 1898. Cost £30,430. [643] Newbury, Children’s Hospital, 1900. (Cited by S. A. Smith as above, not corroborated by Cunningham). This hospital is also unknown to the Cambridge office, although we may be able to suggest confusion with an earlier scheme by a different architect in a nearby village.
Ward on Hospitals
In 1949 Ronald Ward published his book The Design and Equipment of Hospitals. It is illustrated by both typical designs and by plans drawn from a very small number of real buildings. Here is a list of the plans of real hospitals, and the page number.
Addenbrooke’s Hospital, X-ray department p.199 Birmingham Hospital Centre layout p.27; operating theatre p.216 Brentwood District Hospital p.193 Central Middlesex County Hospital, children’s wards p.253 Coventry Infectious Hospital, general plan p.283; general ward p.285 German Hospital, wards p.164; children’s wards p.255 Guy’s Hospital, psychiatric clinic p.268 Hammersmith Hospital, reception department p.125; ante-natal department p.138 Harefield Hospital, stores p.65; laundry p.111; observation wards p.278; children’s block p.279; men’s or women’s block p.280 Harefield Sanatorium, general plan p.276 Hospital for Sick Children, nurses’ home p.93 Leeds general infirmary, outpatients’ department p.129-30; private wards p.232; kitchen for private wards p.233 Leeds, Institute of Pathology p.149 Maccelsfield Infirmary, nurses’ home p.97 Monkwearmouth Hospital, outpatients’ department p.134 Monkwearmouth and Southwick Hospital, electric department p.202 North Eastern Isolation Hospital, receiving block p.286; general wards p.290, p.292 North Western Hospital, laboratory p.147 Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, operating theatre p.222 Royal Masonic Hospital, power house p.59; nurses’ home pp 95-6; wards p.165; electric department p.210; operating theatre p.217
Royal Masonic Hospital, Burnet, Tait and Lorne architects, 1933 from the Wellcome Library licensed for reuse CC BY 4.0
St Bartholomew’s Hospital, wards p.177; operating theatre p.220 Scarborough Hospital, layout p.30; nurses’ home p.98; laundry p.110; outpatients’ department p.135; wards p.181; X-ray department p.201; operating theatre p.220; maternity ward p.239; children’s wards p.254 Surbiton Hospital, Kitchen p.79; nurses’ home p.99; mortuary p.116; wards p.178; X-ray department p.200; operating theatre p.222; maternity ward p.243 Tolworth Isolation Hospital, pavilion ward p.287; cubicle ward p.291 Welwyn Cottage Hospital, pp 32-3 West London Hospital, operating theatre p. 219 Westminster Hospital, kitchen p.77; nurses’ home p.92; casualty department p.123; outpatients’ department p.133; wards p.172; operating theatre p.218 Wolverhampton Eye Infirmary, outpatients’ department p.141
Now the Cluny Hill College campus of the Findhorn Foundation, this building just south-east of Forres in Moray, Scotland, was originally a hydropathic establishment. It was built in 1863-5 to designs by A. W. Bissett. A wing was added to the west in 1896-7 by John Forrest and further additions were carried out in 1905-7 by Ross & Macbeth. [1]
Before it had even been officially opened there was sufficient confidence in its success for John Brodie Innes, of Milton Brodie, to urge the benefits of a ‘hydropathic excursion’ on Charles Darwin. Writing to Darwin’s wife, Emma, in January 1864, Innes declared:
‘The building is nearly completed and certainly is very handsome and will be comfortable. The soil, water, land and sea views are all in its favour. Among other arrivals for it is an equatorial telescope by Dollond. Sir Alexanders home of the toads is close by and much other interest in the immediate neighbourhood. I hope you will come.’ [2]
The house of the toads refers to the discovery of live toads deep in the ground, exposed during excavations for the Inverness and Perth railway near Altyre. Alexander Cumming of Altyre was a friend and neighbour of Innes, and had written letters to the press about the toads.
Cluny Hill Hydro, from J. & W. Watson, Morayshire Described… 1868
Its original architect, A. W. Bissett of Elgin, died before the buildings were completed. The contractors were: masons – Messrs Humphrey and Rennie, Elgin; carpenter – Mr Alex Smith, jun., Forres; plasterer – Mr Alex. Ross, Forres; slater – Mr James Findlay, Forres; plumber – Mr Hunter Elgin; painter – Mr Stalker, Forres. The contract price was ‘about £2,500 exclusive of the baths’. [3]
Extract from the 1st edition OS map, surveyed in 1870. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland
In a guide to Moray published three years after the hydro opened the building was described at some length. The rooms were large and airy, the dining-room a magnificent apartment capable of seating 80 persons. Next to the dining-room was a reading and writing room 40 ft by 18 ft. Over the dining-room was a luxuriantly furnished drawing-room, from which plate-glass doors led to an ante-room, 42ft by 18ft, with an entire glass front. On the west side contained the resident physicians rooms and ‘several handsome parlours and bed-rooms’. Residents had handsomely and comfortably furnished bedrooms placed on either side of a central corridor.
The baths were in the eastern section, those for men were on the ground floor and for women on the floor above. There was the usual range of baths: Turkish, plunge, shower, spray, rain, wave, douche, hose etc ‘hot and cold as required’. There was a croquet lawn and a bowling green in the grounds, and in inclement weather exercise and entertainment could be had in a bowling or skittle alley and gymnasium to the north of the main building, and a winter garden or conservatory. [4]
In 1869 the hydro was the scene of a tragic accident when George Norman, a naturalist ‘recklessly discharged a firearm’ and fatally wounded James Calder, the managing director of the establishment. A ‘locus of crime map’ was drawn up in relation to the ensuing trial to show the area and the exact spot where ‘Mr Calder had received the fatal wound’. Seemingly Mr Norman had been ‘firing with a pea sporting rifle at a cat’. He missed the cat but struck Calder in the head, who had been talking to some labourers engaged in gravelling a path. [5]
During the First World War the hydro was taken over by the military to billet troops. It returned to its original function after the war, but in 1937 became a hotel. By 1975 this was no longer profitable and the building was bought by the Findhorn Foundation for £60,000. [6]
Sources
[1] David W. Walker and Matthew Woolworth, Buildings of Scotland, Aberdeenshire: North and Moray, 2015 [2] J. Brodie Innes to Emma Darwin 16 Jan 1864 in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol.12, pp.18-19 CUP, 2001 [3] Elgin Courier, 3 April 1863, p.5 [4] J. & W. Watson, Morayshire Described: being a guide to visitors… Elgin, 1868 [5] Edinburgh Evening Courant, 11 Oct 1869, p.7 [6] G. Gawler, Grace, Grit and Gratitude, 2008, p.198
![L0024801 The Cruciform Building, University College Hospital, London: Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org The Cruciform Building, University College Hospital, London: perspective from the south-east. Colour lithograph. Coloured Lithograph Published: [19--] Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/](https://i0.wp.com/historic-hospitals.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/l0024801.jpg?resize=513%2C338&ssl=1)
