97-120 Northgate Lodge

Northgate Lodge, Nos 97-120

A three-storey workhouse, later converted to a hospital and known as Headlands Hospital, then Northgate Lodge Hospital. Built in 1864 in orange-red brick laid in Flemish bond with ashlar and polychromatic brick dressings. Welsh slate roofs throughout.

The building's composition is 1:5:3:5:1 bays. The central three bays and end bays project forward and are finished with gables. The quoins are treated as pilasters decorated with bands of white and dark-blue brickwork, now cement rendered on the front elevation. A deep ashlar plinth runs the full length of the building.

The central three bays form the principal feature. At ground level, the openings have painted ashlar surrounds. A central six-panel round-arched door sits within a surround topped by Corinthian capitals to its pilasters. Above the door, roundels contain the date '18' and '64'. The doorcase is finished with a moulded cornice and blocking course. The door is flanked by two square bay windows, each containing a recessed round-arch holding two round-arched lights with nook-shafts and an oculus in the tympanum. These bays have hipped lead roofs.

The first floor has an ashlar sill band. Round-arched sash windows with glazing bars sit beneath polychromatic brick arches. The lower soffit of each arch is rounded, and the upper edge is pointed. Continuous ashlar hoodmoulds run across the front. The second floor repeats this arrangement with round-arched sash windows with glazing bars interspersed by narrow blind openings, all topped by polychromatic arches and continuous hood-moulds. The gable contains a pointed lunette with a bracketed ashlar sill and matching arch. Below the gable is a stepped cogged eaves band, followed by a modillion cornice; the barge-boards have been replaced.

The flanking ten bays have ground-floor round-arched sash windows with glazing bars set above recessed aprons on a band. The first floor has a sill band and round-arched sash windows with glazing bars. The second floor has a sill band and nine-pane unequally-hung sash windows with pointed arches of the same polychromatic type. The same cornice runs across. The end bays have matching fenestration except for second-floor round-arched sash windows with glazing bars and open pediments to the gables. These end bays have hipped roofs. Ridge stacks are corniced throughout.

The rear elevation shows end bays and sixth and tenth bays projecting as turrets. The end bays are pilastered and have similar fenestration to the front but with segmental-arched sash windows with glazing bars on the ground and first floors, and segmental-pointed nine-pane unequally-hung sash windows on the second floor. All arched openings feature polychromatic arches, with ashlar sills at ground-floor level and ashlar sill bands on the first and second floors. White brick bands run at the level of window heads on the first and second floors. The eaves match the front, with open pediments to the end bays and hipped roofs to the inner turrets, which have some openings in their returns. A single-storey kitchen projects from the centre of the rear elevation and appears to be part of the original design. The side returns comprise three bays.

An Administrative Block, dated 1904 and located to the east, is not of special interest.

The building was disused at the time of resurvey. It was formerly listed under the name Back Northgate (north side) Northgate Lodge Hospital.