Symonds House

TL 5447 LINTON SYMONDS LANE (North-East Side)

13/192 No. 44 (Symonds 22.11.67 House) (formerly listed as Linton Hospital) II

Home for the aged, formerly the Union Workhouse. 1836, by Hallet and Newman of London; contractor, Woolacott of London. Stables converted for new tramps cells 1913 by Edwards and Walden. Red brick with flint side walls and red brick dressings; internal walls of unfired clay bat bricks. Hipped low pitched slate roofs. Mainly two storeys, with cellars. Cruciform plan with blocks and linking ranges enclosing three courts. South-west main facade. Central block with pedimented central section slightly projecting with eliptical arched main entrance and similar arch to large window above, pediment with roundel, and dentil brick eaves cornice repeated on two lower 'bays' to left and right hand each with two ground floor and two first floor recessed twelve-paned hung sash windows in segmental brick arches. Originally linking the centre block to mnain side ranges were lower single storey ranges of three 'bays' with three round headed windows with glazing bars; the range to the left hand is intact and to the right hand altered with an inserted floor and windows. The side ranges each with two small ground floor recessed twelve-paned hung sash windows in segmental arches have a large eliptical arched three-light window above. Interior: plan altered but still coherent with some original details surviving, these include original doors with bolts, the details of the board room and chapel, and Newcastle glass in original windows. The workhouse was built for 200 inmates at a cost of £3,823.11.3d, a revised and less ambitious scheme; the flints and some of the bricks were collected and made by paupers of the parish. The brick walls and gates were completed in May 1837.

W.E.A. In and Out of the Workhouse. 1978 R.C.H.M. Report 1951 Pevsner Buildings of England p425 Plans Contract and Specification for Linton Union Workhouse. C.R.0.

Listing NGR: TL5595747152