Hospital, Attached Blocks I-J, And Attached Front Walls, Shoebury Garrison

TQ 98 SW SOUTHEND ON SEA HOSPITAL ROAD (north west side), Shoebury Garrison

5/93 Hospital, attached Blocks I-J, and attached front walls, Shoebury Garrison 28.4.86 GV II

Hospital and attached staff quarters. Dated 1856, drawings signed by Captain R S Beatson, RE. Yellow stock brick with rubbed brick dressings, brick gable stacks, and slate roof. PLAN: double-depth plan hospital with rear service and kitchen block, double-depth plan wings each side with rear service block attached. EXTERIOR: 2-storey; 5-window range, single-storey; 5-bay left-hand staff wing. Symmetrical hospital front has overhanging bracketed eaves, a porch with stucco cornice and pilasters, double 4-panel doors and overlight, and sashes to the sides, a central gable to a first-floor Venetian window with stucco surround, and flat-headed 6/6-pane sashes. A passage with WCs connects to a rear has a central, square, single-storey cook house and ablution block with a louvred ridge lantern flanking a central stack. Staff wing has flat-headed 4/4-pane sashes with a mid C20 door and overlight. INTERIOR: not inspected; drawings show central stair hall with wards each side. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached front wall, with capped piers and metal railings encloses forecourt. Attached buttresses rear wall extends from the hospital enclosing the rear section. HISTORY: one of only two regimental military hospitals in barracks (Fulwood, Preston contains the other) of this period. Beatson was one of the important group of Engineer officers, although the double-depth planning of the wards pre-dates the pavilion plan which dominated hospital design from the 1860s. One of the first buildings at the British School of Gunnery, authorised 1856, for the RA; part of a group with the NCO terraces each side (qv), within a complete mid C19 barracks. (PSA Drawings Collection, NMR, Swindon: 1863-: CTR 130-158; Glennie D: Gunners Town: History of Shoeburyness: Civic Publications: 1948-).

Listing NGR: TQ9389384733