Fairfield Hospital

Fairfield Hospital, originally called the Three Counties Hospital, was built between 1856 and 1860 by George Fowler Jones of York, with advice from Mr Hill, Medical Superintendent of the North and East Ridings Asylum. It was constructed for the counties of Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, and Huntingdonshire, and managed by a Committee of Visitors. The builder was William Webster of Boston, Lincolnshire. Further extensions were added between 1868 and 1870, and again between 1877 and 1881, also in a similar style by Fowler Jones.

The hospital is built of yellow brick, with some red brick patterning, and painted render dressings. It has slate roofs. The building follows a complex, symmetrical plan, with an original block arranged around two courtyards. A projecting administrative block dominates the centre of the front (south) elevation, with further projecting blocks at the outer angles. A chapel block, now repurposed as kitchens, is situated at the centre of the rear elevation. The extensions of 1868-70 included two recreation halls flanking the chapel block, and blocks projecting northwards, which replaced earlier service wings. The 1877-81 extensions further expanded the building westward and eastward, nearly doubling its size.

The various blocks are generally two and three storeys high, with a mixture of gables and projecting canted bays. Towers and turrets are interspersed throughout the building, with some rising to four storeys and an attic. The original roofline was more elaborate, featuring numerous chimney stacks and an ornate clock tower on the administrative block, which has since been removed. The towers have a variety of roof shapes, including pyramidal, hipped (with fishscale tiles and wrought iron finials), and leaded ogival cupulae, giving the hospital a slightly French appearance.

Most windows have mullions and transoms, many set under cambered relieving arches. The central administrative block features a segmental-headed doorway flanked by rusticated pilasters, topped by an ornate first-floor window with a scrolled pediment containing the Three Counties crest. Inside, the ground floor room on the right-hand side of the administrative block, originally the Committee Room, retains plasterwork mouldings to the ceiling and an ornate wood fire surround with carved strapwork, fruit, and the Three Counties crest, incorporating the initials “B.H.H.” A plaque states that this carved oak chimney piece was presented to the asylum and erected by William Webster, the building’s contractor, in September 1859. Both recreation halls at the rear have apsidal ends to the north and clerestories supported by cast iron columns, with some moulded and pierced decoration. Stained glass decoration is found in the long, apsidal windows and in those on the south elevation, the latter bearing the initials of the original Committee of Visitors. Other interiors are relatively plain.