Main Block and adjoining Ancillary Buildings at Wharfedale Hospital (Block 20)

Main Block and adjoining Ancillary Buildings at Wharfedale Hospital (Block 20)

A workhouse built between 1871 and 1873 by local architects CS and AJ Nelson for the Wharfedale Poor Law Union. The building has undergone later 19th and 20th century alterations and additions.

The structure is constructed in coursed square stone with ashlar dressings, featuring gabled and hipped Welsh slate roofs with prominent coped stacks. The design follows the French Gothic style. The main range displays a plinth and dentillated eaves, with a symmetrical front elevation of two storeys arranged across nine bays in a 1/2/3/2/1 configuration, forming a T-plan.

The projecting central block has its central bay slightly set forward and rises into a square tower. A pointed arched doorway with shafts and hood moulded panelled double doors and fanlight is approached by stone steps with coped side walls. On each side stands a canted stone bay window, and above these are three pairs of pointed arched windows with linked hood moulds, all featuring plain sashes. The central tower contains a three-light pointed arched window with square shafts and linked hood moulds, with similar windows flanking it on each side. Above these are machicolations and a parapet with round piercings and corner finials. The tower is topped with a flat-topped pyramidal roof fitted with a cast iron crest and gabled lucarnes with two lights on each side.

The side ranges have two paired glazing bar windows on each floor. At the outer ends are single bay gabled projections of two storeys, with steps leading to doorways in the return angles and single windows on each floor. The projecting gabled end bays contain three-light windows on each floor, those on the upper level featuring pointed arches. Blind traceried roundels appear in the gables. At each end are sanitary annexes, constructed in the later 19th century as single storey L-plan structures with small segment headed windows. The right-hand annex includes a projecting end bay and an additional roof ventilator. Each end gable contains a square stair turret of two storeys, with similar turrets appearing at each end of the rear elevation.

At the rear is a central dining room cum chapel with dentillated eaves to a hipped roof and four round arched margin glazed windows on each side, those to the west being mainly blocked or masked by an early 20th century single storey addition. A kitchen, set crosswise, features coped gables and a large ridge stack. Attached to the kitchen's west gable is a single storey service building with a concrete tile roof. A single storey store with hipped roof adjoins the north side. The north side elevation includes a door flanked by three plain sashes. At the west end is an early 20th century addition, single storey with a flat roof behind a parapet and four unequal windows. East of the kitchen stands another single storey service building with a concrete tile roof. North east of this is the laundry, single storey with six windows, coped gables and a ridge ventilator.

The interior features a central entrance hall and stairwell with segmental vaulting and cornices. A spinal corridor also has segmental vaulting, with segment headed doorways and overlights featuring bullnose moulded surrounds, though late 20th century glazed screens have been introduced. The principal dogleg cantilever stone stair is ornamented with a cast iron balustrade and a ramped and scrolled wooden handrail. The first landing contains a margin glazed round arched stair window. Principal rooms flanking the entrance have bay windows and cornices. Minor staircases are fitted with iron stick balusters. The first floor corridor has a flat ceiling and similar doorways to the ground floor, some of which have been altered. The dining room, refitted in the late 20th century, retains its original roof structure and features a moulded round arched doorway to the kitchen at the rear. The kitchen has a strutted kingpost roof, iron stick balustrade and a gate providing access to cellar steps.