St Charles' Hospital

St Charles' Hospital was built as the workhouse infirmary for the St Marylebone Board of Poor Law Guardians between 1879 and 1881, designed by Henry Saxon Snell with assistance from his sons. The building is constructed of stock brick with minimal stone dressings and a slate roof.

The design follows the "Nightingale plan," featuring a central administration block and kitchens (two storeys, rising to four and five at the rear, with a water tower above). This block is flanked by two three-storey blocks, each containing two seven-bay wards per floor, known as "paired wards," and linked by a spinal corridor and two-storey iron walkways at either end. The walkways are characterized by columns with decorative spandrels and decorative railings. Originally, each ward contained a nursing sister's room closest to the corridor and ablution facilities at the far end, both treated as projecting, separated bays. A three-storey entrance block with medical officers' dwellings stands either side of a carriageway, with a chapel placed above. A subsidiary chapel, formerly serving the mortuary, is now the hospital chapel, a single-storey unit at the east side of the central block.

A dentiled brick cornice runs along all elements of the building. Original sash windows are present on all elevations, typically with stone sills and lintels. In areas such as the administration block and projecting bays, the windows are lancet style, often paired or in threes, carried on brick hood-moulds with flat tympanums. The ablution bays at the ends of the wards incorporate decorative ventilating towers with chequered brickwork and pyramidal roofs, featuring tiny louvres set in timber dormers. These motifs are further emphasized in the prominent central water tower, which projects on brick corbels with vertical banded decoration, stone cornices, lancet louvres treated as dormers in aediculed brick surrounds, and a pyramidal roof.

The entrance block has two bays of medical officers' accommodation with sash windows, the top-floor windows having pointed heads, all beneath hood moulds, either side of a broad carriage arch, topped by the chapel. The chapel and officers’ accommodation were accessed by an external staircase enclosed behind a railing. The chapel features a timber wagon roof with plate tracery, some of which is now blocked following conversion to a sports use in the 1940s. It includes a decorated ridge piece with louvres and a ventilating finial. Surviving interior features include blind arcading with moulded plaster decoration. Many fixtures have been relocated to the former mortuary chapel, including memorial stained glass windows to Horace J Potter, who died in 1924, designed by his brother Leonard, and to S J Cockrell, who died in 1934. A later mortuary building, detached to the rear, is not considered to be of special interest.

The hospital is included on the list as a fine example of a workhouse infirmary, representing the first hospitals funded by public funds following the Metropolitan Poor Law Act of 1867, which permitted their erection in London. It is recognized for its skilled design utilizing simple details and materials.