Windsor House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey basalt former workhouse school block, built c.1875 and located within the Belfast City Hospital site. Constructed on an I-plan and facing east, with projecting two-and-a-half storey pavilion wings to north and south, and identical two storey flat-roofed extensions in purple engineering brick centrally abutting the north and south elevations. North and south blocks are each terminated at west by a lower perpendicular two-storey annexe.

Natural slate roofs, pitched with angled ridge tiles, hipped pavilion style roofs to wings having roll moulded lead ridges and hips, and half-hipped roofs to north and south wings. Generally ogee cast-iron rainwater goods over sandstone eaves; uPVC replacements to rear over exposed rafter tails. Walling is random basalt, brought to courses, with ashlar sandstone dressings including quoins, roundels, platbands and window surrounds. Buttresses to pavilion wings and main block. Variety of windows including some original transomed-and-mullioned casements with float glass to south pavilion wing. Otherwise metal casement and uPVC openers to front, replacement timber casement to north and south, 1/1 timber sash to extensions, and mix of timber and metal casements to rear annexes.

Principal elevation faces east and comprises main block four windows wide to either side of gabled entrance bay. Recessed entrance porch having modern mosaic tiled interior and curved canopy, c.1950. Vinyl fixed lettering ‘Windsor House’, and blind loop to gable. Pavilion wings project forward at either side, and there is a modern porch addition to re-entrant angle of north pavilion. Pavilions are three openings wide and two openings deep, with gabled wall-head dormers and roundels detailed with quatrefoil and cartouche.

Long north and south elevations, comprising four openings to either side of extensions, which have irregular openings to all sides and modern entrances. Each terminated by a slightly lower perpendicular annexe, detailed as pervious but with openings formed in brick and areas of cement render.

Rear elevation is plainly detailed and abutted by mid 20th century cream brick service and lift extension.

Setting:
Occupying a restricted site within the Belfast City Hospital complex, south of the main tower block, and surrounded by mid to late 20th century institutional buildings. Original granite steps with sandstone walls to front, and areas of lawn to front and north; bitmac car parking to south and west.

Roof: Slate
Walling: Basalt
Windows: Variety of timber, metal and uPVC.
RWG: Cast iron and uPVC

Historical information

Windsor House, located within the grounds of Belfast City Hospital, was constructed in 1874 and was originally utilised as children’s accommodation and a schoolhouse before being converted into a hospital for mentally ill patients in 1923. The two-storey basalt building (with two-and-a-half-storey projecting extensions) and the Fever Hospital (located to the south of the Donegall Road) are the only buildings to survive from the Belfast Union Workhouse, which was opened in 1841 to provide relief for the impoverished within the town of Belfast.

Poor relief was first introduced to Ireland in 1838 with the passing of the Irish Poor Law; the country was subsequently divided into 130 Poor Law Unions, each of which contained a single workhouse which provided relief to the poor and destitute of its assigned region. Each workhouse was constructed to a standard design by George Wilkinson (1814-1890) who was appointed chief architect by the Poor Law Commissioners from 1st February 1839; Wilkinson was an Oxford-based architect who had previously constructed a number of workhouses in England under the English Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. George Wilkinson continued to work for the Poor Law Commission until 1855 and was responsible for the standard workhouse design which consisted of three elements: the Front Building, the Main Building (or body of the house), and the Infirmary Building and Fever Hospital.

Belfast Poor Law Union was established on 1st June 1839, covering an area of approximately 75 square miles; under the 1831 census the population falling within the area was projected at 80,512 and in 1839 construction of the Union Workhouse commenced. Designed to accommodate 1,000 people, Belfast Workhouse cost £7,000 and admitted its first workhouse inmates on 11th May 1841. The second edition of the Ordnance Survey maps (1858) show that the Belfast Union Workhouse initially followed Wilkinson’s standard design; however, later editions of the maps (1902-1921) show that many new buildings were constructed at the site over the intervening decades necessitated by the rapid expansion of Belfast from the mid-Victorian period onwards.

The first major addition to the site came in 1847 when the H-shaped Fever Hospital was constructed to the north side of the workhouse. From 1843 the Poor Law Guardians in each union were granted the authority to treat victims of fever, who were deemed as needy but were not necessarily poor enough to require the same level of relief; prior to 1843, those suffering from fever in the Poor Law Unions were turned away from the workhouse unless they were deemed to be suitably destitute. The construction of Fever Hospitals at most workhouses occurred after 1843 and, again, were constructed to a standard design by Wilkinson. The former Fever Hospital is now known as Gardner Robb House and is currently utilised as Belfast City Hospital’s Day Procedure Unit (Gould; O’Sullivan).

O’Sullivan states that in 1848 the Guardians of Belfast Union constructed a building that could accommodate 1,300 poor children whilst providing a standard education under the National School system. The transfer of children from the main workhouse to this building increased the accommodation of the site. The schoolhouse was first recorded on the second edition of the Ordnance Survey maps (1858) which depicted it as a rectangular-shaped building (with numerous extensions) located to the south-west of the workhouse.

Due to the constant expansion of the population of Belfast, medical facilities at the workhouse were under extreme strain by the 1860s; in order to relieve the stretched infirmaries the Belfast Guardians decided to convert the children’s building and school into an infirmary in 1869. In order to replace this facility, the building now known as Windsor House was constructed in 1874 as a schoolhouse. The building was opened on 1st October 1874 and provided accommodation and school facilities for 450 boys and girls; the approximate cost of the building came to £10,500, however the architect is unknown. The second children’s building was first recorded in the Annual Revisions in 1874 as the ’Belfast Union Schoolhouse;’ the initial total rateable value of the schoolhouse was set at £870. The school building first appeared on the third edition of the Ordnance Survey maps (1902-03) for Belfast which depicted the building along its current layout and showed that it originally possessed its own gate lodge (now demolished); photographs of the building from the late-Victorian period show that its general layout and appearance has not been notably altered over the past 140 years, however one feature that Windsor House has lost is a small hexagonal tower that rose above the central block and is visible on some photographs.

The school building continued to be utilised by Belfast Union Workhouse for almost 60 years, Moreau states that on 24th December 1871 the building accommodated 693 children and on 10th December 1890 this figure stood at 634. However by 1923 the number of children inmates at the workhouse had decreased so sharply that the large school building was no longer required to accommodate them. The remaining children were transferred to a smaller structure and, in 1923, the former school building was converted into a hospital for the care of mentally ill patients and renamed ‘Windsor House.’ Despite its conversion, the Annual Revisions continued to record Windsor House as a schoolhouse until their cancellation in 1930; the individual value of the building during this period cannot be determined as the Windsor House was valued jointly with the workhouse infirmaries (the total value of school building and infirmaries stood at £2,195) (O’Sullivan, pp 17-18).

Despite the erection of multiple infirmaries and hospital buildings at the site in preceding decades, by the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1935) the original workhouse, Windsor House, the Fever Hospital and all other buildings on the site were collectively valued at £5,765. The valuer simply recorded the entire site as ‘Belfast Union Workhouse’ and noted that it continued to be operated by the Belfast Board of Guardians, however with the creation of the National Health Service in 1948, the former workhouse became administered by the Northern Ireland Hospitals Authority and, from the 1950s, by the Ministry for Health and Social Services for Northern Ireland. The former Belfast Union Workhouse had been renamed Belfast City Hospital in October 1941; during the Second World War the Belfast Guardians recorded that Windsor House consisted of six wards containing 155 hospital beds and cots. All the buildings incorporated by Belfast City Hospital, including Windsor House and the Fever Hospital, were jointly valued at £13,040 by the end of the Second General Revaluation in 1972 (O’Sullivan).

Windsor House was extensively renovated in 1960 when the interior was redesigned and modern psychiatric wards were installed; during this period the Northern Ireland Chair of Psychiatry was established at the building and Windsor House became the first University Department of Mental Health. Following over a century of expansion and building, a site for the construction of the current hospital tower block was cleared in 1967; as a result most of the original buildings associated with the Belfast Union Workhouse were demolished, however the Fever Hospital (1847) and Windsor House (1874) continue to stand as relics of the workhouse and of the early history of poor relief in the city.

References
Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/48/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1839
2. PRONI OS/6/1/48/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/1/48/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1902-03
4. PRONI OS/6/1/48/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1921
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/D/1-22 – Annual Revisions 1862-1930
6. PRONI VAL/3/B/3/15 – First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland 1935
7. PRONI VAL/4/B/7/43-44 – Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland 1956-72
8. Belfast Street Directories (1843-1918)
9. Listing Query Files – HB18/LQ170

Secondary Sources

1. ‘The Belfast City Hospital: To celebrate the inauguration of the tower unit’ (Belfast: The Eastern Health and Social Services Board, 1987)
2. Gould, M. H., The Workhouses of Ulster (Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1983)
3. O'Connor, J., The Workhouses of Ireland (Conwy: Anvil Books, 1995)
4. O’Sullivan, J. F., ‘Belfast City Hospital: A photographic history’ (Donaghadee: Ballyhay Books, 2003)
5. Moreau, P., ‘Poor Law relief and the role of the Belfast Board of Guardians from 1850 to 1900’

Online Resources

1. The Workhouse website - http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Downpatrick/

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Windsor House, a multi-bay two-storey basalt building, was constructed in 1874 as a school for the Belfast Workhouse. It is one of two remaining workhouse buildings located within the Belfast City Hospital complex, although it post-dates the earlier Fever Hospital by 35 years. The building is imposing in stature, of basalt construction and composed on a symmetrical 'I'-plan.
Now occupying a restricted site within the wider complex its setting has been compromised by surrounding modern development.
It is of some historical significance as a remnant of the workhouse system, however extensive internal alterations and mid 20th century refurbishment and extension have compromised its architectural and historic interest.