Royal Victoria School For The Blind

NZ 26 SW NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE BENWELL LANE (south side)

11/98 Royal Victoria School for the Blind. Benwell Dene 17.12.71

G.V. II

House, now school. 1865 by Alfred Waterhouse for Dr. Thomas Hodgkin. Hammer- dressed snecked sandstone with ashlar plinth and dressings; graduated dark slate roof with serrated ridge tiles and stone gable copings. Irregular plan. Tudor- Gothic style. 2 storeys and attics; entrance front of 6 bays, with one at left and 2 at right gabled and breaking forward to range round courtyard; 2 bays set back at left, 4 bays extending to right from gabled end of right wing. Extruded 2 storey porch at left of courtyard contains boarded door; loggia, now glazed, in inner right return, has 2 paired openings, central octagonal columns with cushion capitals, and low walls except in right entrance bay which has panelled door with etched glazing under 2-centred arch. Scattered fenestration. 3-light stone-mullioned-and-transomed stair window at right of central section. All other windows sashes with flat stone lintels, alternate-block jambs with shouldered chamfers, and sloping sills. Left projection has rounded ground floor corners corbelled out to first floor continuous string; above this are 3 elliptical-headed niches containing low-relief coats of arms. Central section has 3 high-gabled dormers with bargeboards and clove finials. Many ashlar-coped ridge chimneys with buttresses and square yellow pots. Interior shows geometric- patterned tiled entrance hall and dog-leg stair with pierced balustrade and grip handrail. Stair window glass has coats of arms of Middlesex, Newcastle and Cornwall, initials TH and LAH and date 1865. Gothic cast-iron radiator cover in hall. Historical note: Hodgkin was a notable local historian. He gave the house to the Royal Victoria Home in 1894, and at the same time gave its grounds to the then Urban District of Benwell as a public park. Source: M. Hope Dodds, Northumberland County History, 1930, p.234.

Listing NGR: NZ2125264273