Shaftsbury Square Hospital

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Symmetrical end of terrace two-storey multi-bay polychromatic brick hospital, dated 1867, to the designs of William Joseph Barre. Rectangular on plan facing west terminating a terrace of varied building types lining the east side of Great Victoria Street. An additional single bay was added c.1927 to the south end and a multi-bay two-storey with attic redbrick return on an L-plan attached to rear enclosing small yard. Currently vacant.

Pitched natural slate roofs with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles, two profiled redbrick chimneystacks to either end (octagonal clay pots to south chimney only) and stepped cement coping to either gable end terminating in gableted masonry skew corbels. Cast-iron guttering to decorative deep redbrick eaves corbelling and cast-iron downpipes. Yellow brick walling laid in Flemish bond with several flush redbrick courses, continuous painted moulded sandstone sill courses with angled redbrick course and basalt ashlar plinth course with painted sandstone trim. Round-headed window openings with stop-chamfered surrounds, alternating redbrick and sandstone stepped arches and single-pane timber sash windows.

Symmetrical front west elevation has four windows to the ground floor with central entrance and three paired windows to the first floor. A further single bay added to the south end of the elevation employing similar materials by Blackwood & Jury. Round-headed window openings arranged in pairs to the first floor with a central painted sandstone column to each pair with stiff-leaf capitals. Central round-headed door opening with compound moulded redbrick and painted sandstone arch, stop-chamfered jambs and engaged columns with stiff-leaf capitals rising from stop-chamfered plinth bases. Original double-leaf timber panelled doors with prismatic panels having splayed sandstone lintel with bowtel moulding and raised numerals '1867'. Door opens onto concrete paved platform and six concrete steps enclosed by modern railing on modern plinth wall with gabled kneeler stones, added c.1990. Yellowbrick screen wall abutting the north end with round-headed door opening and steel door giving access to the rear.

North side elevation built in redbrick with a single off-centre window opening to each floor extending to the rear in three distinct stages having pitched natural slate roofs of varying heights and various profiled redbrick chimneystacks with octagonal clay pots. Various replacement timber casement windows and blocked up window openings with a lean-to wing abutting the larger return.

Rear elevation has a double gabled elevation abutted by the two-storey with attic return. Gabled rear elevation has steel casement windows while the return has horizontally-glazed 2/2 timber sash windows. The east end of the return is abutted by a further two-storey accretion projecting south and having sandstone quoins and segmental-headed window openings formed in red sandstone with bowtel mouldings and steel casement windows. A redbrick screen wall encloses the rear yard to the rear access lane with a segmental-headed door opening matching the window opening.

South side elevation abutted by adjoining building No.118.

Setting:
Terminating a terrace of varied building types lining the east side of Great Victoria Street with a large vacant plot to its north (currently a self-service petrol station) and a rear access lane serving much of the terrace.

Materials
Roof: Natural slate
RWG: Cast-iron
Walling: Red and yellow brick
Windows: Timber sash / steel casement

Historical information

The Irish Builder records that the hospital on Great Victoria Street was originally constructed in 1867 to designs by William Joseph Barre (1830-1867). Barre had worked in Newry from c. 1850 but moved to Belfast in 1860 after winning the competition to design the Ulster Hall. From 1860 to 1867 Barre’s business flourished, however he died of consumption in 1867 making the hospital one of his final designs (Dictionary of Irish Architects). The hospital built in memory of Thomas Hughes (d. 1848) by his daughter Lady Johnson and was opened on 1 January 1868; the builders contracted to carry out construction of the building were Messers Fulton (Irish Builder, Vol. 10, 1 Feb 1868, p. 33). The Belfast Street Directory for 1880 noted that the hospital was built with a committee room, a caretaker’s room, two wards, and a waiting room on the ground floor and an operating room on the second floor; the rear return of the hospital contained three additional wards (Belfast Street Directory – 1880).

The hospital was originally valued at £75 in 1867; this was maintained until 1906 (when Windsor Ward was valued separately from the rest of central Belfast) at which time the value of the building was increased to £80. This valuation was deemed too high and in 1910 an application resulted in a reduction to £45. From its construction the hospital’s housed the Belfast Ophthalmic Institution and Eye and Ear Hospital; the Belfast Ophthalmic Institution had been formed in 1844 by a Dr. Samuel Brown and from its inception published an annual report. The 1895 report recorded that the hospital treated 1,700 cases during that year and was funded by subscribers. One of the heads of the institution, a Dr. J. M. Barnett, stated that the hospital ‘met a large and increasing want in Belfast’ providing free consultation and treatment to poor labourers who could not afford decent healthcare (PRONI).

Between 1926 and 1928 an additional bay was added to the hospital by Blackwood & Jury; this bay was sympathetic to the original design of the hospital and was added to the south gable of the building (Irish Builder, Vol. 68, 7 Aug 1926, p. 619; Vol. 70, 10 Nov 1928, p. 964). The addition of this bay increased the value of the hospital to £66 at which it remained by the end of the Annual Revisions in 1930. In 1935 the value of the hospital was recalculated at £295 under the first general revaluation of property in Northern Ireland; the Ophthalmic Institution continued to operate from these premises during the Second World War however in 1946 the Ophthalmic Institution vacated the site with the establishment of an eye, ear, nose and throat department at the Royal Victoria Hospital (Belfast Gazette, 15 Nov 1946). The building continued to function as a hospital after 1946 and was run by the Northern Ireland Hospitals Authority. A second revaluation of property took place in 1956 by which time the value of the hospital had increased to £650; however this was lowered to £520 under the 1957 Rent and Valuation Act. The former Ophthalmic Hospital was renamed the Shaftsbury Square Hospital in 1969 and by the end of the revaluation in 1972 the value had again increased to £600.

Patton records that the plot of land on which the hospital was built was originally owned by the Rev. Henry Cooke of May Street Presbyterian Church; Cooke offered the plot to the Lady Johnson as a site for the hospital shortly before his own death in 1868 (HB26/30/031A). Construction of the hospital cost a total of £2,230 donated from Lady Johnson and her husband Sir. William Johnson. Johnson had donated a total of £5,000 to the hospital when it was first opened in 1868. Due to this generosity the Ophthalmic Hospital was equipped with the most up to date facilities of the time including an ophthalmoscopic room ‘which [could] be lightened or darkened at pleasure as the operator chooses’ (Patton, p. 175). Wheeler records that the first surgeon of the Ophthalmic Hospital was Dr. Samuel Brown who originally established the Institution in 1844. Brown was a prominent local figure who was appointed Major of Belfast in 1870 and his son John Walton Brown also became a surgeon in the hospital.

John Walton Brown worked at the hospital until his death in 1923 at which time the average attendance was around 2,300 cases per year. As a result of the hospital’s struggle to cope with these increasing figures Brown wrote: ‘Nothing would afford me greater pleasure than to see established in Belfast an eye hospital worthy of the city and the North of Ireland. In every large centre in England and Scotland there was a fully equipped eye hospital and I do not see why in the course of time they should not have a large ophthalmic hospital in Belfast.’ Soon after Brown’s death the hospital was extended with the addition of the south bay in an attempt to cope with increasing demand, however by 1942 the average number of annual cases had increased to over 5,000; the hospital closed four years later when the eye, ear, nose and throat department at the Royal Victoria Hospital was opened (Wheeler, p. 1-10).

The former Ophthalmic Hospital was listed in 1988 and operated as a medical centre, specialising in the treatment of patients suffering from substance abuse and addiction until 2010.

References

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1832-33
2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/1/61/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1901-02
4. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1931
5. PRONI OS/6/1/61/5 – Fifth Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1938
6. PRONI HO/32/1/7 – Printed annual report of the Belfast Ophthalmic Institution and Eye and Ear Hospital, Great Victoria Street (February 1895)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/3 – Annual Revision 1863-1881
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/12 – Annual Revision 1882-1897
9. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/37 – Annual Revision 1897-1905
10. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/P/4 – Annual Revision 1906-1914
11. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/P/8 – Annual Revision 1915-1930
12. PRONI VAL/3/B/3/22 – First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland 1935
13. PRONI VAL/4/B/7/52 – Second General Revaluation of Northern Ireland 1956-1972
14. Belfast Street Directories (1880)
15. Irish Builder, Vol. 68, 7 Aug 1926; Vol. 70, 10 Nov 1928.
16. Wheeler, J. R. ‘The history of the Belfast School of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology’ Belfast: Queens University Belfast Lecture, 1944.

Secondary Sources

1. Larmour, P., ‘Belfast: An illustrated architectural guide’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1987.
2. Patton, M., ‘Central Belfast: An historical gazetteer’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993
3. First Survey Record – HB26/30/072 (1988)

Online Resources

1. Dictionary of Irish Architects - http://www.dia.ie

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior

Criteria for listing: historic interest

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

Evaluation

Symmetrical end of terrace two-storey multi-bay polychromatic brick former hospital, constructed 1867, to the designs of William Joseph Barre. Rectangular on plan and located at the end of a terrace of varied building types which lines the east side of Great Victoria Street. Displaying proportions and detailing typical of the late Victorian period, much of the architectural fabric is intact. Externally, the decorative polychromatic brick facade is of considerable interest. The internal layout has been partially changed, however some elements of a typical Victorian interior survive. Although no longer functioning as a hospital, Number 116 Great Victoria Street is of considerable social importance and interest to the local community.