Holgate'S Hospital: North Range

Holgate's Hospital North Range comprises one of two ranges of almshouses with a chapel, built between 1859 and 1860, and subsequently altered. Constructed of red brick with bands of blue brick, sandstone dressings, and a tiled roof, the building has a long, rectangular plan centered around the chapel, encompassing twelve cottages arranged six to each side. It is primarily a single-story structure, with the chapel being two stories high. The architectural style is High Victorian Gothic.

The central chapel projects forward and features a steeply-pitched gabled façade with two-stage corner pilasters topped with pyramidal stone caps and a central pilaster. A foliated carved stone band runs around the façade, below which is a blind arcade of three bays in each section, featuring deep chamfered sills, colonnettes, two-centred arches, and a triangular zig-zagged hoodmould with figured stops. Above the band are two plate-traceried two-light windows with central colonnettes and quatrefoil heads. Rising from the pilaster is a statue of a bishop, sheltered by a cusped canopy on slender shafts. Above the canopy, an unusual cylindrical shaft extends to the full height of the gable, seemingly detached except for connections to stone bands within the gable and at the apex where it functions as the front colonnette for a diagonally-flanked stone bellcote capped with a pyramidal top and weather vane. The side walls present doorways beneath stone gables. The rear of the chapel has an apsidal east end with lancet windows.

The low, single-story side ranges feature six cottages grouped in pairs. Each pair is characterized by a recessed porch flanked by bay windows, creating an unusual and striking composition. The porch has a trefoil-headed archway with a moulded stone head and hoodmould that extends around the bay windows, terminating in a steeply-pitched gablet with a stepped apex. Each porch has a doorway on either side and a small two-light window in the rear wall. The bay windows themselves are triangular with high crow-stepped parapets, featuring vertical-rectangular windows with stone sills and head-bands, and altered glazing. A semicircular bay with similar windows and a conical roof is centrally located on each side range. Linking ranges contain two similarly designed windows with stone sills and heads, and saw-toothed eaves bands. The roof is finished with fish-scale banding and tall corniced ridge chimneys. The rear elevation of the building is plainer, with recessed porches for each pair of cottages.

The interior of the chapel is a small, single cell of simpler design than the exterior; the remainder of the building was not inspected. The building crosses a parish boundary, with approximately one-third of its extent located in Hemsworth parish to the east.