Former Nurses Home

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached symmetrical multi-bay four-storey red brick Gothic Revival hospital building, dated 1932. Built to the designs of Francis McCardle with a pair of gabled breakfronts and a projecting stone entrance porch. Square on plan facing south onto the Crumlin Road with an enclosed front area, forming part of the Mater Hospital complex.

Originally U-plan in shape with a central stairwell and external courtyard located to the rear, the courtyard was infilled with a modern red-brick extension during late 20th century.

Pitched natural slate roofs with terracotta ridge tiles and moulded cast-iron guttering supported on moulded limestone eaves course and square-profile cast-iron downpipes. Red brick walls laid in Flemish bond with projecting red brick plinth course having chamfered limestone trim. Square-headed and pointed-headed window openings with torus-moulded surrounds, limestone sills, continuous terracotta hood mouldings and uPVC sliding sash windows.

Symmetrical front elevation is ten windows wide with roll-moulded limestone ashlar coping and moulded kneeler stones to both gabled breakfronts and to a central gable surmounted by a large stone cross framing a trefoil-headed niche with religious limestone statue. Carved limestone date plaque below statue staging; ‘1932’. Oculus to the gables of both breakfronts with hood mouldings, four flush limestone keystones and timber louvres. Square-headed window openings to the third floor with masonry lintels. Pointed-headed window openings to first and second floors formed in gauged brick and limestone. Square-headed tripartite window openings to the ground floor with limestone surrounds and mullions. Both gabled breakfronts are abutted by three-storey three-sided canted bay windows having paired square-headed window openings with limestone mullions and lateral window openings with continuous limestone lintels and sill courses. Rectangular plan entrance porch faced in limestone ashlar with tripartite arrangement of pointed-headed door opening and cusped sidelights with splayed sills framed by a continuous hood moulding with foliate spandrels and stone fascia with applied lettering stating; ‘Mater Infirmorum hospital’ and moulded limestone parapet over. Replacement double-leaf timber doors open onto raised masonry platform and stone steps. Porch is surmounted by a three-sided canted bay window formed in limestone ashlar with crenellated parapet and three pointed-arched window openings.

West side elevation is eleven windows wide with a gabled breakfront to the rear, all detailed as per front elevation.

Infilled red brick rear elevation, built c.1980.

East side elevation is nine windows wide with a gabled breakfront to the rear, all detailed as per front elevation (paired windows to the ground floor with limestone mullions).

Setting:
Located on the north side of Crumlin Road on its own grounds with a bitmac front area enclosed by low red brick wall with limestone coping and decorative wrought-iron railings with matching gates supported on elaborate limestone ashlar piers with Gothic carvings. The original front steps at the main entrance have been replaced with a modern disabled access ramp with painted metal guarding and railings.

Roof: Natural slate
RWG : Cast-iron / plastic
Walling: Red brick
Windows: UPVC

Historical information

The former nurses’ home at the Mater Infirmorum Hospital was constructed in 1930-34 to designs by Francis McCardle, who completed a number of commissions for the Catholic church at this period. An addition to Fennell’s hospital building of 1900, the nurses’ home echoes the form and rhythm of the central administration building to the west and is first shown on the OS map edition dating from the 1960s/70s. The contractors for the steel-frame building were John Carson & Sons of Belfast.

The building is first entered into valuation records in 1934 as a nurses’ home and grounds valued at £230 and replacing an earlier nurses’ home which was situated on the opposite side of the road. The contract was valued at £35,000 and included the removal of four houses on the site and the provision of railings and a gatescreen in front of the building. Alterations and additions were made to the building in 1940 but the nature of these is unclear (www.dia.ie). The building remained in use as a nurses’ home until the 1980s.

The Psychiatric Unit at the Mater Hospital was set up in 1949 and was the first such unit to be directly affiliated to, and within the grounds of, a general hospital in the United Kingdom, allowing the patients to have optimum access to laboratories and physicians. The unit initially contained 11 beds but this was expanded to 26 in 1990 when the unit was moved into the former nurses’ home, two floors of the building being converted during a twelve week period by contractors Savage Brothers to designs by Chaplin Hall Black Douglas. The ground floor was redesigned as consulting rooms, offices and treatment rooms, retaining the original decoration where possible. Safety requirements meant that the open stairwell had to be closed in and the first floor, which had originally been laid out in small rooms, was made open plan with a new suspended ceiling (Ulster Architect). In the late 1990s a £1.4m renovation scheme converted the remaining two floors to provide 55 beds for in-patient use and the existing facilities on the ground and first floors were upgraded (UA International).

The Psychiatric Unit closed in early 2019. The ground floor is currently in use for bereavement services [March 2026].

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/6 – Sixth Edition OS Map 1931
2. PRONI VAL/12/5/3/1/1 – Annual Revisions (1930-35)
3. PRONI VAL/12/A/7/C/38 – Valuer’s notes 1934
4. Street Directories 1934-1995
5. Ulster Architect Mar/Apr 1991
6. UA International Mar/Apr 1999

Secondary Sources

1. www.dia.ie – Dictionary of Irish Architects online

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
V. Authorship

Evaluation

Detached symmetrical multi-bay four-storey red-brick Gothic Revival hospital building dated 1932 to designs by Francis McCardle. Although completed in 1932 in steel frame construction, the hospital was built in a historicist Gothic Revival style with some Tudoresque details. Despite partial infilling of the rear courtyard, removal of original stairwell and replacement of windows as part of late 20th century hospital refurbishment, historic fabric and detailing survives. The style and symmetry relate to the overall complex of the Mater Hospital (HB26/43/005A). Originally designed as a nurses home the building was used as a psychiatric hospital from c.1990 until 2019. Of significance as part of the ongoing development of the Hospital and medical advances generally in relation to psychiatric care and as representing the continued expansion of the City in the early/mid Twentieth century.

General comments

To Note:

At the time of listing, the Department acknowledges that the Belfast Trust is advancing redevelopment proposals which could include the demolition of the Former Nurses Home, Mater Hospital, to provide essential additional capacity for patient care. Any proposal affecting this building will require Listed Building Consent, to be submitted to and determined by Belfast City Council in its role as Local Planning Authority. In this process, the Department will act as a statutory consultee.

The Department will not oppose development that serves the wider interests of the people of Northern Ireland and acknowledges that while development proposals which demonstrably support the delivery of critical health services and the wider public interest may be appropriate, the ultimate decision rests with the Council. It is for the Council to consider the building’s heritage value alongside the significant health and community benefits associated with the Trust’s proposals, in line with planning policy at the time of determination.