Pest House, Townlands Hospital

HENLEY ON THAMES

696/0/10031 YORK ROAD 22-JUL-03 PEST HOUSE, TOWNLANDS HOSPITAL

GV II Pest House for former Henley Workhouse, unused at the time of inspection (December 2002). c.1790, possibly extended in C19, with minor later alterations. Red brick with some burned headers, and pitched slate roof. 2-room structure oriented E-W and set into sloping site, taller to E which may be the later extension. EXTERIORS: N elevation facing main building slightly advanced to right with old brick including casement window and door to left faced with later brick. W elevation with central sash and some burned headers. S elevation with chimney to centre and casements, earlier brick to left. E elevation faced with later brick, door and casement in gable end. INTERIOR: Not inspected but visible are lathe and plaster ceiling below collar level, a corner brick fireplace under segmental arch, and early brickwork. SOURCES: ed. Earl Leslie Griggs, 'Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge'. Vol. 1785-1800. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956.

A late-C18 Pest House built for the Grade II Henley Workhouse, now Townlands Hospital (q.v.), that has special interest for its age and type, as well as being where the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge spent a week in 1794, a miserable experience about which he wrote, and by which his later work was influenced.