Lagan Valley Hospital

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Symmetrical multi-bay two-storey with attic-storey stone former workhouse, built c.1840, with a pair of breakfront three-storey gabled blocks to either end. Converted to a district hospital in 1920. Set back from Hillsborough Road to the east, on a north-south axis, with a central rear spine wing attached to a further block running on a north-south axis, forming an H-plan. Extensively renovated, altered and extended throughout the twentieth-century with 1960s multi-storey hospital building to the north.

Pitched natural slate roofs, black clay ridge tiles, dormer windows to the central section and some redbrick chimneystacks. Replacement moulded iron guttering to timber eaves and square-profile iron downpipes, exposed rafter feet to side elevations. Rough-hewn squared basalt walling with chamfered stone plinth course and tooled ashlar quoins (now painted). Square-headed window openings formed in redbrick (now painted) with red sandstone sills and replacement aluminium windows.

West front elevation, thirteen windows wide with a breakfront three-storey double-gabled block to either end, two windows wide. Three windows grouped to the centre to form a central section with three dormer windows to the roof. The central section has a central segmental-arched door opening formed in redbrick with bowtel moulding and terracotta hood moulding with decorative label stops. Replacement timber panelled and glazed doors with sidelights and overlights. Abutting the gabled end blocks is a further segmental-headed door opening formed in painted redbrick with replacement hardwood panelled doors and (possibly original) sidelights and tripartite overlight.

North side elevation is three windows wide with no windows to the second floor and a central door opening.
Rear elevation generally rendered and abutted by series of gabled and flat-roofed extensions obscuring the original scheme. Abutting the rear is a central single-storey stone spine wing projecting at a right angle, detailed as per front elevation. Rear spine wing terminated by a further two-storey stone wing abutted by a further two-storey redbrick wing. An original 2/2 timber sash window to the two-storey stone block and round-arched former carriage arch opening to its southernmost bay. The south elevation to the single-storey spine wing is abutted by a lean-to extension with rendered walling.

South side elevation as per north side elevation.

Setting:
Set on a H-plan facing west on the east side of Hillsborough Road. Front area given over to car parking with bitmac drive encircling entire building with several later temporary and modern structures. Former Fever Hospital to the east, detailed as per principal building now in use as a day nursery.

Roof Natural slate
RWG Replacement moulded iron
Walling Squared rough hewn basalt
Windows Replacement aluminium

Historical information

Lisburn Union workhouse first appears in primary source documentation on the second edition OS map of 1858. The present Lagan Valley hospital is partially housed in the former workhouse which, according to Gould and O'Connnor, was completed on 1st January 1841 and was intended to house 800 inmates. The cost was £6,200 for the building and £1,358 for ‘fittings etc’. (Gould, p.19, O’Connor, p.262)

In 1838 the Poor Law (Ireland) Act was passed, subsequent to similar legislation in England and Wales, under the provisions of which Ireland was to be divided into a number of Poor Law Unions based on market towns, each of which was to have a workhouse for the destitute. (Dallat, p.23, Gould, p.3)

Mr George Wilkinson, who had previously built a small number of workhouses in England, was appointed as the architect to the Poor Law Commissioners in 1839 and remained in the post until 1855. The workhouse building designed by Wilkinson consisted of three main parts. A separate front building and a main building joined to an infirmary building at the rear with a spine at right angles, completing an H plan. Wilkinson’s designs were of three sizes, small, medium and large, but authors differ as to the criteria for each of these sizes. O’Connor suggests that a workhouse of 800 inmates would have been ‘large’ but according to Gould, workhouses with a central main building of only two storeys were ‘small’. One hundred and sixty three workhouses were built in Ireland between 1840 and 1853, all variations on designs by Wilkinson. (Gould, pp.6-8; O’Connor, pp.81, 259-64).

The Lisburn workhouse appears, from the second edition Ordnance Survey map (1857) to have followed the standard design fairly closely, the only variations being two substantial wings to the north and south of the entrance building (entrance building now gone) and a large wing running west to east and abutting the infirmary, which may have been a later addition to the original building. A ‘Birds-Eye View of Union Workhouse’ reproduced in O’Connor, would appear to be an accurate approximation of the building as constructed. (O’Connor, p.81)

The cost of each Irish workhouse was only two thirds of the cost of similar workhouses in England and Wales. This was achieved by making the floors of mortar or earth and making sleeping platforms instead of using beds. The rough stone walls were whitewashed rather than plastered and there were no ceilings to the dormitories. However Wilkinson wished to make the appearance of his buildings as pleasing and unobtrusive as possible and he stated in his architectural report, “The style in which the buildings are designed admits of execution best suited to the nature of the materials with which the country generally abounds. The carboniferous or mountain limestone has an irregular fracture suited for the mode of execution generally known as rubble masonry, with which the walls are proposed to be constructed; and which, in point of strength and durability, is equally suited for the building with dressed stone or ashlar work, and would have a more characteristic appearance. The necessarily conspicuous situation, which many of the buildings must occupy, suggests the above style as the least obtrusive; while its gabled roofs and elevated chimney shafts give it a pleasing and picturesque appearance. The windows are constructed with mullions and transome heads and diamond lights.” Wilkinson was choosing a style associated with Tudor and Jacobean alms-houses in England. (Dallat, p.23-4)

In 1845, as famine and concomitant disease began to grip the country, the Poor Law Commissioners began to order the building of fever hospitals in workhouse grounds, in areas were none existed locally. A tender for building the fever hospital at Lisburn was accepted in 1847 and the hospital is shown to the rear of the workhouse complex on the second edition of the OS map (1858). (Donnelly, p.104, Johnston, p.105, O’Connor, p.144, 243)

Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) lists the Union Workhouses, offices and land as being occupied by the Poor Law Guardians in fee. Several buildings are listed including a washhouse, kitchen, laundry, work room, nursery, penitentiary, infirmary, fever hospital, dead house and forge. The valuation is £300, later raised to £392, probably indicating additions to the building at this time.

In 1852 a visitor from Scotland visited some of the Poor Law unions in the north of Ireland and recorded his findings in the Glasgow Herald. He described the Lisburn workhouse thus: “The house is of very tasteful architecture with long avenues and spaces of ground on all sides blooming with vegetation. Nothing could exceed the milk-white cleanliness of the floors, walls, doors and other furniture of the establishment. There are 15 acres of ground attached to it, which are kept in an excellent state of cultivation by the master, without any assistants but the paupers”. (quoted in Kinealy)

The workhouse system was ended in Northern Ireland in 1948 but most of the smaller workhouses had already been converted to District Hospitals by that time, encouraged by government legislation. Dallat states that “Most of our hospitals throughout the province are converted workhouses” and, indeed, many workhouse and fever hospital buildings are still in use today as part of hospital complexes. Lisburn Workhouse was closed on April 13th 1918 and became the Lisburn and Hillsborough District Hospital in 1920 and subsequently the Lagan Valley Hospital. On conversion to the District Hospital, Annual Revisions record a large increase in value to £480 in 1922, denoting that additions and remodelling have taken place. (Dallat, p.25, Gould, p.17-28, Lisburn Herald)

The old front building of the workhouse was demolished in 1967. However the main building, that would have housed girls and boys schools, officers’ quarters and adults wards, survives although the dormer windows have been reduced to three in number. Parts of the dining hall and infirmary buildings to the rear also appear to still be present, together with the fever hospital. (Kinealy)

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/68/2 – Second Edition OS map 1857
2. PRONI OS/6/1/68/3 – Third Edition OS Map c1900
3. PRONI OS/6/1/68/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1921
4. PRONI OS/6/1/68/5 – Fifth Edition OS Map 1939
5. PRONI VAL/2/B/1/56B – Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/9A-T – Annual Revisions (1863-1924)
7. Lisburn Herald, April 13th 1918

Secondary Sources

1. Dallat, C “Caring by Design – The Architectural Heritage of Health and Social Services in Northern Ireland” Department of Health and Social Services Northern Ireland, 1985
2. Gould, M H “The Workhouses of Ulster” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1983
3. Kinealy, Dr C “The Lagan Valley Workhouse during the Famine” in Lisburn Historical Society Journal, Vol 8, 1991 (available at www.lisburn.com)
4. O’Connor, J “The Workhouses of Ireland – The Fate of Ireland’s Poor” Dublin: Anvil Books, 1995

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior

Criteria for listing: historic interest

S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance
V. Authorship
X. Local Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

Multi-bay two-storey with attic-storey stone former workhouse, built c.1840, on the east side of Hillsborough Road, Lisburn. The exterior of the former workhouse retains its front and side elevation compositions, with distinctive gabled roofs. Despite losing its original windows and most of the interior fabric, due to its refurbishment as part of a regional hospital, it retains some of its institutional floor plan and a fine imperial staircase. Originally built to the designs of George Wilkinson, this former workhouse is of historic and social importance to the Lisburn area.