Medical Centre (Building 24), Hounslow Barracks

TQ 1175 NE BEAVERS LANE (North side) 787/41/10030 Medical Centre (Building 24), Hounslow Barracks (formerly Known as Hounslow Cavalry Barracks Hospital

GV II

Regimental hospital. c1862, designed by Captain Douglas Galton, RE. Cream-coloured terracotta blocks with red brick dressings and ashlar plat band, brick lateral stacks and slate hipped roof. PLAN: In-line ,pavilion plan of wards flanking a central administrative block with detached kitchen and stores. EXTERIOR: single storey; 1:7:7:7:1-window range. Symmetrical range has red brick quoins and dressings to the openings, and boxed eaves, projecting 2 storey adniinistrative block with plat band, recessed 3-window centre with an arcade of central doorways with radial fanlights and double doors, narrow windows to parapet ted corner blocks, 12/12-pane ground-floor sashes to inner sides, fronts of projecting blocks have 6/6-pane sashes and paired first-floor plate-glass sashes; central gable dormers to each side flanked by lateral stacks. Single-storey wards each side have flat-headed 6/6-pane sashes. Projecting end pavilions have triple round-arched windows to front and rear, and similar windows either side of end recessed doorways. INTERIOR: has former ward rooms either end with a central dogleg stair , encased c 1930, and mid C20 partitions. HISTORY: Galton was one of the main hospital reformers, an associate of Florence Nightingale and responsible for the highly influential Herbert Hospital (1865). He circulated model pavilion plan hospitals for barracks through the Royal Engineers. Hounslow was based on the 60-bed in-line hospital. It is possibly the earliest example of the pavilion principle in the country, and a little altered building within its original barracks layout. (The Builder: London: 1862-: 6 DECEMBER, 872-4; PRO, WORK 43/48; Hospitals and Asylums of England, 1660-1948: Katherine Morrison: The Hospitals of the Armed Forces: Draft: 1994-).

Listing NGR: TQ1212475556