Dunston Hill Hospital

Dunston Hill Hospital is a large house that has been converted into a hospital. The rear north wing was originally built for John Carr, who lived from 1667 to 1739, and was later enlarged for Ralph Carr, who lived from 1711 to 1807, with a rainwater head added in 1750. John Carr, who lived from 1764 to 1817, faced the house with stone, renewed the roof, changed the entrance from the east to the north, and built the dining room and kitchen wing. The building is constructed of sandstone ashlar with rusticated quoins and a basement, topped with a roof of Welsh slate. It has a T-plan layout, with the front range featuring a basement and two storeys, and seven windows across two sections. The central doorway now contains a sash window with glazing bars set in an architrave beneath a pulvinated frieze and cornice. There is a sill band on the ground floor and a band on the first floor, with architraves on all windows and pulvinated friezes on the first-floor windows, including a central segmental pediment. The projecting eaves cornice adds to the building's character. The rear wing has two storeys and five bays, featuring a three-light canted bay and a round-headed stair window on the left side, as well as a Tuscan doorcase leading to a half-glazed door on the right side. The hipped roof of the front range has two yellow brick transverse ridge chimneys, while the double-span roof of the rear wing has two end brick chimneys and two ridge chimneys. Inside, there is an early 18th-century staircase with fat turned balusters and a wide handrail in the rear wing, along with high-quality stucco ceiling decorations in the main rooms on the ground floor. Cornices are present throughout the building, with Regency-style alcoves and architraves in the corridor from the later inserted entrance. A later staircase features slender turned balusters and a ramped handrail, with a stucco-decorated ceiling. Historically, John Carr of White House purchased the estate of Dunston Hill in 1704.