Uffculme Hospital

This is a large house, dating from 1891, designed by William Jenkins for Richard Cadbury. Constructed of red brick with Portland stone dressings, it is now used as a hospital. The house has slate roofs with shaped gables and finials. Brick stacks are present, also with stone detailing.

The building is organised around a large, full-height central hall featuring an oriel window on the north front and a semi-circular conservatory at the south garden front. A smaller entrance hall sits alongside the hall, incorporating a porte-cochere on the north front, and a service wing extends to the west. The architectural style is Jacobethan.

The north front is asymmetrical, with a projecting entrance containing a shaped gable and a large, stone, tetrastyle porte-cochere with substantial pedestals. A bay window sits above the porte-cochere, and a short wing projects to the left featuring a shaped gable end. The south garden front is dominated by a large, semi-circular, cast-iron conservatory, now re-clad with plate glass and incorporating a lead-domed roof with a clerestory. To the left and right of the conservatory are taller, two-bay ranges, each with small shaped gables above two-story stone bay windows; the left bay is canted, and the right bay is semi-circular with a balustrade. A lower, two-story wing is set back on the left, featuring small gables above the first-floor windows and a glazed single-story addition in front. The east elevation includes shaped gables, bays, and a 20th-century two-story wing.

The interior is notable for the enormous central hall spanning from the front to the back of the house. This hall features closely spaced piers with paired brackets supporting a gallery extending around three sides, with a large oriel at the front. The hall has arch-braced roof trusses with tracery above the collars and roof lights. A wide imperial staircase rises from the east side of the hall, with a stained glass window on the landing. A stained glass window from the gallery provides light to the conservatory. The conservatory now has an inserted floor and has been re-glazed, but the original cast-iron structure remains intact, composed of slender, fluted wall columns and a central column supporting arches radiating to the walls. Original joinery, including finely inlaid doors and chimneypieces, is largely preserved.

Richard and George Cadbury, heads of the Cadbury chocolate manufacturing company, commissioned the house; George Cadbury later founded the Bournville Village Trust. As a Quaker family known for their philanthropy, the Cadburys are believed to have used the hall at Uffculme for entertaining and charitable events.