Blocks A and B and façade of Relief Office at St Leonard's Hospital

Blocks A and B and façade of Relief Office at St Leonard's Hospital

A former workhouse, now hospital, built for the Parish of St Leonard, Shoreditch between 1863 and 1866, designed by William Lee of St Michael's House, Cornhill. The listing encompasses only the main frontage block facing Kingsland Road (block A), the perpendicular block to the rear (block B), and the façade of the Relief Office fronting Hoxton Street. Other buildings on the site, including the modern block behind the Relief Office façade, are not included in the listing.

Exterior of Block A

The main frontage to Kingsland Road is a symmetrical composition in French Second Empire style. Built in red brick with Portland stone dressings, it rises four storeys above a basement with an attic storey containing dormers and slate roofs. The composition comprises an eleven-bay central range flanked by three-bay pavilions.

At the centre stands a stone-faced centrepiece with a paired Doric column portico and tripartite windows, one bearing a scrolled pediment, topped by a mansard roof with iron cresting. The three-bay pavilions at each end are similarly treated with stone centrepieces and mansard roofs; their ground floors feature bay windows. Consistent stone details across the façade include a rusticated plinth, keyed arches to all windows, voluted surrounds to the round-arched dormers, and rusticated quoins. A grey granite foundation stone is set into the plinth.

Exterior of Relief Office

The Relief Office façade on Hoxton Street, lying further to the west, is also red brick with Portland stone dressings but adopts an Italianate style. Round-arched windows punctuate the ground floor, and the first floor features quoined windows beneath a broken pediment centrepiece. Upper floors are plainer in treatment. String courses carry painted inscriptions in capital letters reading "St Leonard / 1863 / Shoreditch / Offices for the Relief of the Poor". Only the façade of the original building survives; the block behind is modern.

Rear and Block B

The decorative treatment does not extend beyond the principal facades. The rear of block A and all of block B are constructed in grey stock brick without stone dressings and have slate roofs with brick chimney stacks. The hall or chapel section of block B is distinguished externally by tall round-arched windows separated by slender brick buttresses. Elsewhere the elevations are unadorned with plain fenestration; simple segmental-headed windows light the main wards, and narrower windows serve the stair towers, all retaining their original timber sashes. Some alterations have been made to building entrances.

Interior of Block A

The broad spatial arrangement survives, with rooms accessed from a spinal corridor. Ground floor rooms in the end pavilions are panelled, and three rooms retain black marble fireplaces. A grand central staircase dominates the interior, with two flights on each side of the stairwell leading to shared landings on each floor. The staircase features a decorative metal balustrade at lower levels, stick balusters higher up, and polished timber handrails. The first floor landing opens onto a small balconette overlooking the hall or chapel and includes an original fireproof door. Similar fireproof doors survive at other points between the main blocks.

Interior of Block B

The hall or chapel runs perpendicular to block A within the eastern portion of block B and extends three storeys in height across the building's full width. A decorated plasterwork ceiling crowns the space, which is lit by large arched windows positioned a storey above ground floor level. Above the hall sits a further floor supported on decorative wrought iron brackets surmounted by large timber beams along the centre line of the piers between the windows. Decorative iron ventilation grilles occupy the centre of the ceiling. At the west end stands a balcony supported on cast iron columns, accessed via one of a pair of service stairs on the building's north side. The floor above the hall retains its original room configuration and elements of original joinery and has no through access to the third floor at the western end of block B, probably because this section housed female inmates while the latter accommodated males. Elsewhere in block B, inspected areas have been refurbished with no surviving historic features evident, although the plan roughly follows the original layout.