Description

GREAT YARMOUTH

TG5206 QUEEN'S ROAD 839-1/6/146 (South side) 05/08/74 St Nicholas' Hospital, Main Block (Formerly Listed as: QUEEN'S ROAD Royal Naval Asylum)

GV II*

Naval hospital. 1809-11. By William Pilkington under supervision of Edward Holl, Architect to the Navy Board. Became naval barracks in 1818 and subsequently a general hospital. Yellow brick laid in Flemish bond with dressings of Portland stone. Slate roofs. PLAN: quadrangle plan of single-depth wards, with W chapel. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. Each of the 4 wings linked by a single-storey quadrant passageway. The north front has a central 5-bay pediment over a rusticated stone entrance arch. Fenestration throughout is generally of sash windows fitted with 6/6 glazing bars. Platband at first floor continues round entire exterior. North front has 2 full-height square projections added later. Shallow gabled roofs. East, west and south fronts also with 2 added projections in gault brick, the south with an additional centre projection acting as an entrance. The internal elevations of the 4 blocks basically similar, each having an arcade under round arches of 29 bays, arranged in the same rhythm: 3 bays, 10 bays, central 3 portico bays, 10 bays, 3 bays. The arcade is single-storeyed and set in front of the 29 bays of sashes of the first floors. The north and south porticos have pediments and project over the full depth of the arcade while the east and west pedimented porticos break forward only slightly. The ground floor of each of these porticos continue the arcading but have unfluted Roman Doric columns, doubled at the ends. Metope frieze. The south portico has had its arcade bays blocked with windows and has a polygonal lantern tower with clock faces. The corner quadrants each have 2 similar columns in antis. The west portico contains the chapel and has instead of 6/6 first-floor sashes 3 plate tracery windows, which are repeated on both floors of the exterior elevation. INTERIOR: extremely plain. No original main rooms or staircases. The principal staircase to the west of the north entrance is boarded but probably has wide stick balusters. Chapel interior rises through 2 storeys, with a moulded string course marking the nominal floor-line. Coved plastered ceiling without decoration.

HISTORICAL NOTE: the cupola formerly lit the first-floor operating theatre. A unique piece of planning for a military building, whose closest model is the late C17 Royal Hospital, Kilmainham in Dublin, and possibly influenced by Haslar naval hospital; walkways for moving and exercising patients were standard elements in military hospitals of the period. Built for casualties from the North Sea squadron in the Napoleonic War, it was stil admired for its well-lit and ventilated design by the hospital reformers in the 1860s. An impressive and original instance of hospital planning and military architecture, forming part of a complete group. (Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North-east Norfolk and Norwich: London: 1973-: 148; SAVE Britain's Heritage: Deserted Bastions: London: 1993-: 124).



Listing NGR: TG5289006400

External Links

• Wikidata Q17554508

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Recommended Books

• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6
• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of History Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)