Shoreditch Health Centre

The Shoreditch Health Centre, formerly the Shoreditch Maternity and Child Welfare Centre, was built between 1922 and 1923. Designed by Francis Danby Smith, it is constructed of red brick with stone dressing and has a tiled roof. The building has a rectangular, ‘I’-shaped plan, two storeys, and eight windows facing Kingsland Road, with twelve windows on the Laburnum Street elevation. It is designed in an Early Georgian style, exhibiting a symmetrical front elevation arranged in a four-window range with a central entrance and two projecting wings, each two windows wide. Brick quoins are present, as is a wooden modillion cornice. The windows are characterized by high-quality red brick arches, stone keystones, and 6/6 sash windows throughout. The entrance features a high-quality stone surround with engaged Doric columns and a broken pediment above, enclosing a carved coat-of-arms and a sculpture of a mother and child. Four rusticated gate piers with moulded stone caps and bases stand in front of the entrance. The Laburnum Street side elevation has twelve windows, with the end two bays projecting from the main range. A large round-headed window is situated in the penultimate bay at the west end, with a brick quoined surround and a stone modillioned pediment above. A two-bay projection to the rear has a blind window at ground floor level. The interior features an entrance hall leading to a staircase that rises to the first floor and a main hall. There are small, plain consulting rooms leading off spine corridors, with original brass fittings (handles and bolts) on the doors. A stone staircase with metal balustrades and a moulded wooden handrail is present. The central hall is top-lit with walls articulated with classical detail, including a Greek key frieze and Doric pilasters. The building has been slightly altered; the west wall was moved eastwards one bay, with the original elevation reproduced as a facsimile. A new wing was added to the south side of the original block. The later block at the rear of the site is not of special architectural interest. The Shoreditch Maternity and Child Welfare Centre was one of the first ante-natal and infant care out-patient centres in Britain, built in response to campaigns spearheaded by George Frederick McCleary from 1915. The building's neo-Georgian elevations were designed by Francis Danby Smith, who specialized in hospital construction. The cost was funded by the Carnegie UK Trust, which also supported similar centres in Liverpool, Birmingham, and Motherwell; the Shoreditch Centre is considered the most architecturally distinguished of this group.