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Summary

Description

James Miller, 1929-1931. Imposing 2-storey and attic, 15-bay, T-plan, piend- and platform-roofed neo-Georgian nurses home with pavilion-type single storey and attic recreation room with transomed windows linked at rear. Sited to SE of hospital in small tree-lined garden on raised ground overlooking City of Perth. Principal entrance bays comprising blind portico with Ionic pilasters, consoled canopy and dentilled cornice over 2-leaf panelled door with multi-pane fanlight and flanking corniced windows; regular fenestration in vertical brick bands divided by broad pilasters; small wallhead dormers. Painted harl with contrasting red brick detail. Deep brick base course and eaves cornice. Architraved windows and brick voussoirs.

Principal elevation to NE with 3 slightly advanced centre bays forming entrance with moulded dies projecting above cornice, regular fenestration to flanking bays and to small wallhead dormers.

12-pane glazing pattern in timber sash and case windows and top-hopper windows, and multi-pane glazing to transomed windows. Grey slates. Coped harled stacks with some cans.

INTERIOR: little altered with plain cornicing, panelled doors, multi-pane screen doors and timber fire surrounds. Vestibules and washrooms with tiled floors. Recreation room retains plain cornicing, panelled timber dado, boarded floor, and timber fire surround with marble inset and cast iron grate.

BOUNDARY WALLS AND GATEPIERS: semicircular-coped brick boundary walls with square-section brick gatepiers and ironwork gates.

Statement of Special Interest

The nurses home at Perth Royal Infirmary is a distinguished, little altered example of James Miller's later work. Externally it is a replica of the main pavilion at Stirling Royal Infirmary (opened 1928), the central pavilion of which Sloan and Murray describe as 'vaguely Lutyens: hipped swept roof, white pilasters punctuating the two-storey brick elevation, white window frames and tall chimneys' (p46). The design is again presented in the stripped neo-classical elegance of the 1939 Nairn Head Offices at Kirkcaldy 'the most distinguished of Miller's neo-classical '30s administration buildings' (p54). Although designed to provide accommodation for 64 nurses, the nurses home is no longer used to anything like full capacity, but retains a quiet dignity, fulfilling its design function. The brick and harl detailing is a reflection of the construction materials used in the nearby Infirmary, also a James Miller design, begun in 1910. The original spacious plan of the Infirmary, incorporating piend roofed pavilions with square towers bearing signature cupolas, has gradually been eroded with the addition of infill pavilions and ancillaries.

References

Bibliography

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