Whiteley House and Hospital

Whiteley House and Hospital is a former rest home designed by Sir Aston Webb in 1921 for the Whiteley Homes Trust. Webb extended it around 1925 to provide hospital wards, and his successor Maurice Webb added further hospital wards, a nurses' block, and a connecting walkway to the north-east around 1930.

The principal phases are built in brick laid in Flemish bond under clay-tiled roofs. The building began as a west-facing rectangular structure, with later phases adding cross-wings and extensions to the rear and north end. A three-storey corridor connects the former hospital to the nurses' block at the north-east.

Hospital Building

The original 1921 phase is two storeys with tripartite four-over-four sash windows under brick heads. The west front has 13 bays of brown mixed-stock brick with grey brick to the first floor, arranged symmetrically around a central entrance. Rounded brick pilasters rise every two bays, aligned with chimneys above. The entrance is set in brickwork with two courses of ball mouldings and has a stone architrave with a rebated pattern and rose motifs at the corners. Above the entrance sits a metal lantern on a horizontal scrollwork bracket. The recessed central doors are panelled and half-glazed. At the eaves are courses of tile above moulded bricks. Later gabled cross-wings extend at either end of the elevation—two bays to the north and three to the south. The ensemble stands under a steeply pitched roof with deep eaves. Eight tall moulded brick chimney stacks with polygonal ends rise from the front pitch, with two short stacks on the ridge.

The later cross-wings are faced in mixed-stock and grey brick. Each has four paired four-over-four sash windows separated by a central pilaster. Above the pilasters are niches set in stone pediments, each containing a hooded female figure—the northern figure carrying an anchor, the southern holding a heart. At the southern end, the cross-wing attaches to single-bay pavilions forming the southern ends of the east and west elevations. These pavilions are built in alternating grey and mixed-stock brown brick with central double-height recessed round-headed arched panels featuring moulded keystones and a cornice above. The tops of the panels contain round-headed casement windows.

The south elevation has five bays bookended by the pavilion returns. The ground floor has regular tripartite windows, and the rainwater goods are stamped 1924. The projecting first-floor verandah has been infilled between the columns with later uPVC windows and a rendered fascia. Above is a rendered cornice beneath a brick parapet, and the flat roof has four polygonal chimney stacks.

The return to the northern cross-wing is three storeys with a central gable and two polygonal chimney stacks. The ground floor has a central entrance under a round-headed brick architrave with brick keystone, flanked by multi-pane windows. First and second-floor windows are tripartite.

The west elevation extends northward with a set-back later phase. To the south is a triple-height canted bay window with tripartite sashes—taller at the top floor—under a grey brick parapet. The north side has a bay of sash windows in similar brickwork. Further north, a brown brick link connects the hospital to the nurses' block, originally single-storey but with first and second storeys added later. The ground floor has a pair of solid timber doors within a brick architrave decorated with bands of moulded brick, with a moulded brick storey band and paired six-over-six sash windows to either side. Three more windows sit at the first and second floors.

The three-storey rear elevation follows the same architectural treatment as the front—brown and grey brick with multi-pane sash windows—but is plainer and more repetitious. At the northern end sits a triple-height canted bay whose northern return has three polygonal-end chimney stacks grouped together. Further south, regular fenestration sits below a red and grey brick parapet behind which rise tall moulded brick chimney stacks. Windows are multi-pane single, paired, or tripartite sashes interspersed with service entrances and louvred doors at ground level. Towards the centre is a round-headed multi-pane entrance door set back under a round-headed brick arch, with a 36-pane casement window above under a triangular pediment engaged with a moulded-brick cornice. Towards the southern end, a projection has tall narrow multi-pane sashes to the second floor. The southern end is terminated by the gable and pavilion of the southern cross-wing.

Nurses' Block

The later nurses' block has a cross-shaped plan and hipped roof. Broadly symmetrical, it consists of three storeys predominantly in red-brown brick at ground level and grey brick on upper floors, laid in Flemish bond, with a moulded-brick storey band at the ground floor. The west elevation has a steeply pitched grey brick gable with red-brown rusticated brick quoins and brick coping. The ground floor has two tripartite four-over-six sash windows. The first and second floors have a central double-height canted oriel window with six-over-six sashes. The oriel has a lead-covered and panelled surround surmounted by a tented lead canopy. The south return of the gable has a pair of timber doors with multi-pane glazing within a stone architrave, lit by a metal lantern. Tripartite multi-pane sashes sit in the upper floors set into red-brown brickwork. The north return is similar but has a window at ground level.

The three-storey rear elevation faces east onto a garden and is broadly symmetrical. The four central bays project. A canted entrance bay at ground level has a multi-pane garden door flanked by four-over-six sashes to each side and eight-over-twelve sash windows to north and south. At the north end the first bay is blind; the southern bay has eight-over-eight sash windows. Upper-floor fenestration is arranged as four windows to the centre and one to the southern end bay—eight-over-eight to the first floor and eight-over-twelve to the second floor, beneath segmental brick arches with keystones. Upper floors are in grey brick, and the four central bays have banded brick quoins to either side. The roof has two tall chimney stacks of grey brick with red-brown detailing.

Interior

Within the hospital and nurses' block, fixtures and fittings are mainly functional and late 20th century. A few hospital rooms retain simple brick fireplace surrounds. The sitting and dining rooms have solid timber doors and architraves, decorative mouldings to the walls, and deep moulded skirting beneath the windows. These rooms also have Art Deco-type marble fireplaces and polished steel firebacks. The 1921 dogleg open-string stairs have ramped moulded timber handrails and squared newel posts with plain metal balusters. The later hospital extension stairs are of similar design but the balusters have cross-bracing.

Some rooms within the nurses' block retain original solid timber doors and architraves along with brass door furniture. The timber dogleg stairs have a moulded handrail, squared newel posts, plain pendants, and bobbin balusters. The connecting walkway between the nurses' block and hospital has diamond-patterned tiles of terracotta and black to the ground floor.