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Summary

Description

Sydney Mitchell & Wilson. 1906. 2 storey, 5 bay traditional Scots administration block with single storey and attic wing linking to Italianate dining hall with prominent campanile. Rendered masonry with ashlar to doorpiece and wallhead window margins. Purple ashlar masonry to dining hall.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: E (entrance) elevation with advanced central bay with baroque ionic-pilastered doorpiece and large armorial panel above (see Notes), pair of gabled dormers to left and right with diamond insets to gableheads. S elevation with Italianate dining hall to left, 7 bays, 5 central bays glazed, outer bays with recessed central sections with niche and panel inset. Ballustraded eaves. 4 stage campanile to right of hall, lower stages harled. Round arched opening to ground, ashlar bellcote above string course with round arched openings to each face and swept roof above.

Prodominantly multi-pane glazing in timber fixed light and sash and case windows. Grey slate, red tile ridge.

INTERIOR: partially seen (2007), fine interior to board room with ornate chimneypiece and vaulted plaster ceiling, dining hall now subdivided.

Statement of Special Interest

The administration block at the Royal Victoria Hospital is a highly distinctive building which makes free use of two different styles, very much in the ethos of the Arts and Crafts movement which looked to traditional styles and methods in reaction to mass production and mechanisation. The building was designed by Sydney Mitchell who is a well known architect of the period who made use of a range of styles in his work. The administration building is one of the most pleasing of Mitchell & Wilson's hospital designs. The building typifies concern of late Victorians and Edwardians to treat ill persons in buildings surrounded by gardens & villas rather than in obvious institutions. The hospital began as a rest home for consumptives. During the First World War it was requisitioned for use as a specialist neurological treatment unit. There were a series of distinctive butterfly plan pavilions laid out on the site. These were demolished in the late 20th century and the hospital is now housed in a 1968 brick building by Reich, Hall and Partners.

References

Bibliography

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