Children'S Hospital And Attached Steps, Walls And Piers

The Children's Hospital, now functioning as a children's centre with a community unit and residential unit, was built between 1910 and 1912 by architects W and TR Milburn. It features bright red brick with ashlar dressings and a roof made of plain tiles, complemented by brick chimneys and a painted lantern. The building has brick dwarf walls and piers topped with ashlar coping and finials.

Designed in a Free Baroque style, the structure has an E-shaped plan with south pavilions on the wings. The administration block is two storeys tall with seven windows, while the linking corridors are one storey with seven windows. The wings are also one storey, featuring a configuration of two, three, and two windows across seven openings. The administration block displays intermittent ashlar quoins and is supported by ashlar Tuscan columns on the steps leading up to a central panelled door with an overlight that has glazing bars.

Above the porch, there is a canted ashlar oriel with a floor string, which features sashes, including a central sash set in a segment-headed keyed architrave with an apron adorned with guttae. The oriel extends through the eaves and is decorated with a lozenge panel below the top cornice and a parapet. The lantern above includes a colonnade and an ogee dome. Other windows are sashes with plain stone surrounds and keystones, except for the ashlar bow windows located in the outer ground floor bays, which also have an eaves band and parapet. All windows have glazing bars.

The hipped roof has swept eaves with ridge and end chimneys. The corridors from the returns feature panelled doors in central gabled bays with fixed lights. The wings have high plinths supporting paired painted Tuscan columns and side half-columns, with a narrow central door and high overlight with glazing bars set under deep eaves. Similar narrow lights flank the porch. The two-window pavilions flanking the entrances have moulded sills for tall, narrow fixed and pivoting lights, with ashlar above leading to an eaves band and parapet. The low hipped roofs over the wings cut across the inner returns of the pavilions, which have pyramidal roofs topped with ball finials. The circular-plan south pavilions on the wings feature continuous glazing and flat roofs. The dwarf walls and piers at the entrances have flat stone coping and ball finials.