John Scott Health Centre At Woodberry Down

This health centre was built between 1948 and 1952, with minor late 20th-century alterations. It was designed under the direction of Robert H. Matthew ARIBA, Architect to the London County Council, by W.J. Durnford FRIBA, Senior Architect, and A.E. Miller FRIBA, both of the General Division, working with Medical Officer of Health Sir Allen Daley and his successor Dr. John A. Scott.

The building has a reinforced concrete frame faced with golden brown handmade bricks and stone, with steel Crittall windows. The design shows Swedish influence in its modern style, with a simple monolithic quality and classical proportions. The only decorative elements are narrow sill bands. The building is two storeys high with a parapet concealing a flat roof behind.

Plan and Layout

The building has an extended C-shaped plan around a central courtyard. The layout separates multiple services: doctors' consulting rooms occupy the Green Lanes wing, while the School Health, Child Welfare and Ante-Natal units are housed in the more protected wing facing Springpark Drive on the estate. A linear former nursery extends to the east and curves forward slightly at its eastern end.

Exterior

The Green Lanes elevation comprises a main range of 22 windows at ground and first floors with a wide central entrance, a set-back wing to the right of 5 window bays over an entrance, and a set-back wing to the left of 10 window bays also with an entrance to the right. The windows generally form a continuous strip with slightly advanced stone surrounds. Original metal-framed casements survive behind late 20th-century plastic double-glazing. The entrances have similar stone surrounds with deeply recessed doors in stone architraves.

The return elevation to Springpark Drive has a main range of 27 window bays (4 windows with secondary glazing) flanked by advanced bays. The right-hand bay has 3 individual windows above a wide entrance of glass brick in a stone surround with a central recessed door. The left-hand bay is three storeys with a late 20th-century door and canted glazing below full-height first floor glazing, all within thin stone surrounds, and a strip of 6 single-pane windows to the second floor. This three-storey block returns to the rear elevation with 4 individual windows at each floor, flanked by an even taller narrow range that is blind except for a tall stair window with small horizontal metal glazing. Beyond this, it continues with a rear range that has 15 window bays, an end elevation of 5 over 3 individual windows, and the courtyard-facing side with a fire escape.

The strip windows continue to the courtyard-facing elevation of Springpark Drive and that of the Green Lanes wing, but here there is a single-storey late 20th-century addition within the formerly open central courtyard. The return elevation to Green Lanes has 6 individual windows at ground and first floor and a tall stair window to the corner, with a tall chimney to the mostly blind end elevation which has 3 individual windows. Facing south, there is a two-storey glazed window divided into 3 panes, with the left-hand pane at ground floor serving as an entrance, and to the left a strip of 8 windows to ground and first floors.

Attached by a low link to the east is the Day Nursery, which was built as an integral part of the complex, although it does not communicate internally. This building, now the Woodberry Down Early Years Centre, was renovated and partly extended in 2004. This range appears subsidiary but is in a similar architectural style and has historic interest for the services it provided within the original complex: rooms for toddlers, tweenies, babies, as well as pram space. It comprises a single-storey linear range that slews at the east end to fit the site. The special interest is concentrated at the entrance, with its sinuous glazed doors with overlights and a deep overhanging roof, and lettering indicating "Woodberry Down Day Nursery". The rest of the nursery range is of lesser interest.

Interior

The entrance hall to the Green Lanes entrance is lined with polished hardwood including a revolving door and commemorative plaque, and a pair of plain columns. The entrance from Springpark Drive has an oval tray ceiling. The ground floor lecture hall has lost the original light fittings and ceiling decoration. The first floor Doctors' Common Room has a streamlined surround of horizontal blocks to a recessed fireplace with a metallic frame, and original light fittings. First floor corridors continue around the perimeter of the building with circular roof lights and open-plan waiting areas interspersed with offices to each side.

Three staircases comprise metal-framed glass panels under metal ramped handrails culminating in circular green metallic newel posts. The stairs are well-lit by glass brick ceiling lights, glass brick partitions from corridors, and tall exterior stair windows.

History

The Woodberry Down Health Centre, renamed the John Scott Health Centre soon after opening in 1952, was built to serve approximately 17,000 people, with a projected capacity for approximately 23,500. 6,500 of these potential patients lived on the contemporary Woodberry Down Estate, and the attached Nursery School was to accommodate 42 children.

The Woodberry Down Estate fills six acres at the northern boundary of the old County of London. The London County Council acquired the Victorian villas on the site in order to develop this new estate between 1946 and 1948. The site had the benefit of proximity to the New River and its twin Stoke Newington reservoirs, of which the health centre and the housing enjoyed attractive vistas. Woodberry Down was to be the only one of the London County Council estates to fulfil the ambition of the County of London Plan, written in 1943 by the influential planner Patrick Abercrombie and the County Architect J.H. Forshaw. This called for new housing to form neighbourhoods in the manner of traditional London villages, where most daily needs were provided for with schools, shops, community centre and library, and comprehensive health care. The comprehensive school has been demolished, and shops and library have been altered. Much of the housing, the health centre and the nursery survive.

A health centre was planned for the Woodberry Down Estate as early as 1939, and a brief was set out in 1946 when London County Council Architects W.J. Durnford and A.E. Miller began working with the Council's doctor, John A. Scott, to prepare plans. The discussions between the architectural and medical departments, as well as other committees and government departments such as education, allowed the thoughtful planning and inclusion of a wide range of local health authority services: Medical Practitioners' and Dental Surgeons' Unit, a School Health Unit, Child Welfare Unit, Ante-Natal Unit, and a Remedial Exercises and Child Guidance Unit. The idea of comprehensive health care with all these services under one roof alarmed many in the medical profession who perceived it as threatening the ideal of the family doctor. Progress was delayed by a dispute between the Ministry of Health and the British Medical Association about the suitability of such a comprehensive health centre. However, in 1948, permission was obtained and ground was broken in March 1949. This was less than one year after the creation of the National Health Service, and construction went forward on this first model of a new and specialised building type.

Significance

The Woodberry Down Health Centre was one of the first and the most impressive National Health Service health centres in the country. Opening in 1952, it was built to serve approximately 17,000 people, with a projected capacity for approximately 23,500. 6,500 of these potential patients lived on the contemporary Woodberry Down Estate, one of the early London County Council estates to fulfil the ambition of the County of London Plan written in 1943 by the influential planner Patrick Abercrombie and the County Architect J.H. Forshaw. The health centre survives mostly unaltered and its original planning and design is clear and impressive. Furthermore, ongoing extensive thematic research has more fully shown the seminal importance of this building in the history of the modern health system. The Woodberry Down Health Centre is of historic special interest as one of the first post-war health centres following the 1948 creation of the National Health Service, and of architectural special interest as a mostly intact 1946-1952 design by London County Council Architects that expresses innovative planning as well as high quality design of the period. The historic and architectural special interest of the health centre is enhanced by its context within the Woodberry Down Estate, one of the most significant examples of London County Council urban planning and architecture to come to fruition after the Second World War.