Building record 1796/1/5 - Nurses' Home, St Crispins Hospital

[Former Pendered Block]. A large white rendered building of 1934-5 by Gotch, Saunders and Surridge. It comprises three and four storeys, five-bay centre with small towers and pedimented sections. Now converted to apartments.

{1} A new nurses' residence was built to the north-west side of the asylum grounds in 1935. Gotch, Saunders and Surridge of Kettering designed it in 1934, and it was a unique building with a form and style that varied markedly from existing asylum structures. Several revisited Baroque features were, however, incorporated into the building, as had been the case with the Superintendent's House and the main asylum entrance block. The building was not accessible for survey, but a comparison of both original plans with a recent survey showed that the internal layout had survived intact.
The exterior of the building was covered with a white-painted concrete render, which obscured the nature of the fabric. The building was of a split-level with the central seven bays of the building of four floors, the northern and southern six bays three floors. Two bays to either side of the central sector had five floor rooms in 'towers', but the roof height was no higher than the central sector. The eastern side, which housed the entrance within a three-bayed façade, included a Baroque porch with a prominent date-stone and a classic circular window in the facde above, which was pedimented. Several of the higher rooms were also pedimented at roof level. There was a projecting string-course around the building above first floor level which was reminiscent of those below the windows on the main asylum building. All windows were plain casements of four sections with wooden frames, with opening lower panels. The glazing arrangements were six lights in lower frames, four lights in the upper, two panes wide. The slate roof ahd been replaced two years before the hospital was closed.

<1> Thorne A.; Foard A.; Lean S., 2003, Historic Buildings Recording of St Crispins Hospital, Upton, Northamptonshire, 2002, p.85 (checked) (Report). SNN103454.

<2> Thorne L.; Lean S.; Harding J., 2003, Historic Buildings Recording of St Crispins Hospital, Upton, Northamptonshire (Illustrations), Fig. 28 (checked) (Report). SNN103455.

<3> Bailey, B, Pevsner, N, and Cherry, B, 2013, The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, p. 487 (Book). SNN111989.

Record last edited

Jun 5 2024 12:59PM