The Former London School Of Medicine For Women (Bounded By Hunter Street, Handel Street And Wakefield Street

The Former London School of Medicine for Women

This building, bounded by Hunter Street, Handel Street and Wakefield Street, is the former London School of Medicine for Women, renamed the London (Royal Free Hospital) School of Medicine for Women in 1896. It now houses various institutions. Built between 1897 and 1900 by the architect J.M. Brydon, it is constructed in red brick with stone and gauged brick dressings. The roofs are tiled mansards with dormers and tall brick chimney-stacks topped with stone cornices. The design follows the Queen Anne style and adopts a C-shaped plan, constructed in three successive phases progressing from Wakefield Street to Hunter Street.

The Hunter Street elevation presents three storeys with an attic and basement, featuring eight windows with slightly advanced end bays. Two central chimneys are banded and linked to form an arch with a keystone above a dormer that also has a keystone and section of cornice. The dormers to the end bays have segmental pediments and barrel roofs, each containing a round-arched sash flanked by upswept parapets. The design is symmetrical except for the entrance, positioned next to the right-hand end bay, which has a Doric doorcase with a broken pediment and a round-arched door with a patterned fanlight and rusticated voussoirs. The sashes are slightly recessed; those on the ground floor are segmental-arched with keystones, the first floor windows have keystones flanked by lugged voussoirs and a continuous sill band, and the second floor windows are flat-arched with a mutule cornice at sill band level and Gibbs type surrounds to the end bay windows. An eaves cornice runs along this elevation.

The return to Handel Street features a stepped and shaped gable with gauged brick detailing and a two-storey range below with a broken stone pediment. Beyond this, set back, is a nine-window bay range with a central first floor Venetian-style window. A similar stepped and shaped gable marks the east end, ornamented with stone banding and gauged brick detailing. Facing the courtyard at the rear is an advanced squared bay in the corner, with a first floor wide window under a rounded arch surrounded by red gauged brickwork and corner pilasters. An apron below carries the inscription: "LONDON ROYAL FREE HOSPITAL SCHOOL OF MEDICINE FOR WOMEN. Founded 1874. Rebuilt 1897". The roof in this corner is topped with a cupola and weathervane.

The return to Wakefield Street has eight window bays, with those on the first floor placed under rounded arches and those five on the courtyard elevation having stone surrounds and gauged brick pilasters. Attached to this, though of lesser architectural interest, is a circa 1915 range also known as No.2 Wakefield Street.

The interior was not fully inspected at the time of listing. Metal baluster stairs with scrolled balusters are present throughout. The range along Wakefield Street features a metal tension rod truss roof with roof lights. A lecture theatre occupies a corner with a raked floor and later modifications. Twentieth-century modifications have been made throughout to accommodate continued institutional use.

The London School of Medicine for Women was founded in 1874 and became affiliated with the University of London within three years. Its first dean, from 1883 to 1903, was Dr. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the first Englishwoman to qualify in medicine and an important figure in medical and women's history. Anderson selected the notable architect J.M. Brydon for this project; Brydon also designed the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital on the Euston Road. The school initially occupied a large house at No.30 Handel Street, but by 1897, with 170 students and leases expiring, a rebuilding programme became necessary.

Construction began on Wakefield Street, formally opened in July 1898, which contained rooms for teaching chemistry, physiology, anatomy and physics. This wing was funded by Emily Pfeiffer and became known as the Pfeiffer wing, with additional funds contributed after the Princess of Wales agreed to open the building. The second stage of construction immediately followed, along Handel Street, which housed two lecture theatres, a library, a biological laboratory and other classrooms, and was completed by autumn 1899. The old houses on Hunter Street were demolished and the final stage was built the following year. During Anderson's deanship, the school became associated with the Royal Free Hospital and was renamed accordingly in 1896.