Building record 1160/441/19 - Engineering Complex

{1} The central part of this building was built between 1847 and 1885, as the workhouse laundry, with a drying yard to the west. By 190 it had been extended southwards, including the trapezoidal room now linked to the building to the south. Its west extension, round the north and west sides of the former drying yard, had been built by 1926. Between 1962 and 1971 part of this later extension was demolished.
The earliest part of the building is constructed in red brick, laid in English Bond, with a bevelled plinth and a projecting eaves course. Lintels are brick, curved, 1 stretcher and 1 header deep. The present windows are 9 pane, fixed, with stone sills. The roof is Welsh slate. The southern extension has similar brickwork, but lacks the plinth. Windows and doors in this section have been remodelled in recent years, and their original form cannot be determined. The 20th century additions to the building are constructed in Flemish Bond, with curved brick lintels and cast metal windows of 30 panes, with a central opening hopper section of 8 panes. The roofs are partly flat, partly single pitch, clad in Welsh Slate.
The southernmost rooms of the building are now linked by internal doors to the former Dallington Ward in the building to the south, and house the ward sliuce, toilets and bathroom. Moving northward, rooms comprise and archive store (formerly the mess room for maintenance staff), carpentry, painter's workshop, with offices and a toilet in the remaining section of the building. The store adjacent to the engineering workshop is of interest because a short section of line-shafting survives in the roof above it. The isolated section of the building now houses toilets, identified as being for visitors' use.

<1> Zeepvat B., 2004, Historic Building Survey: St Edmund's Hospital, Wellingborough Road, Northampton, P. 34 (checked) (Report). SNN104796.

Record last edited

Jun 16 2008 10:26AM