Royal National Hospital For Rheumatic Diseases And Royal Mineral Water Hospital, With Railings

This former Royal Mineral Water Hospital, now a hospital for rheumatic diseases, comprises two connected buildings of exceptional architectural and historical significance. The original building was designed by John Wood the Elder and constructed between 1738 and 1742, with an attic storey added in 1795 by John Palmer. A substantial western extension was built in 1859-1861 by Manners and Gill. The buildings suffered bomb damage to the west end in April 1942, and underwent considerable modification with a new attic storey added between 1962 and 1965 by Gerrard, Taylor and Partners. The two buildings are connected by a bridge across Parsonage Lane.

Materials and Construction

The hospital is built of limestone ashlar with slate roofs throughout.

Exterior: Original Building by Wood the Elder

The first building presents two storeys with a high attic and basement. The principal facade comprises eleven bays arranged as four-three-four windows, all fitted with plain sash windows set in moulded architraves. The ground floor windows have pulvinated friezes and cornice hoods. The plinth contains ten square openings to the heads of basement lights, splayed to bays five through nine.

The central three bays form a pedimented frontispiece with four giant unfluted Ionic attached columns rising to a full entablature with modillion cornice. The pediment contains the Royal Coat of Arms (possibly of Coade stone), above a frieze inscription reading 'ROYAL MINERAL WATER HOSPITAL'. The entrance consists of a centre pair of three-panel doors beneath a four-pane transom light, set in deep reveals approached by five steps, within an architrave with a pediment on pilasters with consoles. The ground floor windows have a continuous plain sill band. The attic, with the centre three bays brought forward, has a cornice with blocking course and parapet.

The return to Union Street was modified when that street was cut through in 1806. It is finished in plain ashlar with nine sashes at attic and first floor levels, and seven at ground floor. The plinth and masonry to the lowest level, below the ground floor sill band, are pecked. The first floor has a sill band, with cornice and blocking course at this level, though all trim is stopped off at the end two bays. An overall attic cornice matches that of the front. An inscription in Roman lettering at the right-hand end reads: 'ROYAL NATIONAL HOSPITAL/FOR RHEUMATIC DISEASES/ROYAL MINERAL WATER HOSPITAL/ESTABLISHED BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT AS/THE HOSPITAL OR INFIRMARY/IN THE CITY OF BATH/A D 1739'.

The return to Parsonage Lane has a single bay before the bridge, including a doorway, and six bays beyond. All windows are plain sashes set in reveals at three levels, and in splays to first and ground floors. To the right, the basement includes an early twelve-pane sash. There is a plinth mould, ground floor sill band, cyma cornice above the first floor, and main cornice swept down at bays three and four.

The two-storey flat-roofed connecting bridge is carried on four unfluted Roman Doric columns.

Exterior: Extension by Manners and Gill

The second building is similar in character to Wood's design, arranged in four-three-four bays, but with full three storeys, a late 20th-century mansard attic, and two basement levels. Windows are plain sashes with architraves, with pulvinated friezes and cornice hoods at ground and first floors. The central pedimented portico has unfluted Ionic columns rising from a platband above ground floor level. The pediment contains a carving in high relief of the Good Samaritan by H Ezard. First floor windows are set to a podium band with balustrades below the windows, and a balustrade with dies extends across the whole. The basement has four-four large modified sashes set in a very narrow area.

The return to Parsonage Lane has seven bays beyond the bridge with plain sashes set in reveals to moulded sill bands. The ground floor has four bays with windows in architraves. To the left is an apse to the chapel with a lead roof and five small arched lights.

The rear has five early bays with plain sashes in architraves, a late 20th-century deep full-height apsidal addition, plus a further three bays. The first floor has four windows opening to a balcony on cast iron brackets with a light-iron railing balustrade. The ground floor has two-light Bramantesque windows with a form of plate tracery, lighting the chapel.

The return to Bridewell Lane is arranged in seven bays with a projecting two-storey central porch-like unit containing a Palladian window with Ionic pilasters and Gibbsian surround above a door with two lights. The front has trim similar to the main front.

Interior

The layout differs from that described at length in Wood's 'Essay on Bath'. The original block had a kitchen, laundry and stores in the vaulted basement, where original windows survive. A dispensary, boardroom and women's wards occupied the ground floor, with four wards on the upper floor. The ground floor of this block is now occupied by therapy treatment rooms. The staircase is concrete and modern.

Manners and Gill's addition contains a large open wooden staircase in Palladian revival style within the central hall. Many of the administrative functions of the earlier block were transferred to the new building. The chapel contained stained glass by Wailes of Newcastle, destroyed in the Second World War, but retains its coffered ceiling, chancel arch with figural corbels, and decorative wall treatment.

Subsidiary Features

Across the front of the Manners and Gill building, enclosing very narrow areas, are cast iron railings on a stone curb, positioned each side of the entrance bays.

History

Originally called the General Hospital, or Infirmary, the name was changed to Mineral Water Hospital in the mid-19th century. It was originally intended as an infirmary for poor patients from outside Bath, an idea first mooted in 1716 by Lady Hastings and Henry Hoare, but progress was only made after the opening of a subscription in 1723 by Sir Joseph Jekyl. Poor patients seeking a cure were becoming a growing social issue in Bath, and their removal from the streets was a major encouragement behind the foundation of the hospital.

John Wood was enlisted in 1727, and he selected this open site close to the Hot Bath, on land belonging to Robert Gay. Wood's design for a circular building, issued in 1731, was only dropped after Jekyl insisted on room for future expansion. After a delay, the site of a playhouse was settled upon and building commenced in July 1738, with the Earl of Bath laying the foundation stone. Wood provided most of his services freely, and Ralph Allen gave much of the stone. By the time the building was opened in 1742, £8,643 had been raised by subscription, in which Beau Nash played a prominent part.

Wood conceived the hospital as a major public building, embodying the growing civic awareness of the City, and on completion it was a notable purpose-built hospital which fittingly embodied Bath's reputation as a place of medical treatment. Wood's eleven-bay Palladian front was originally to have been enriched with a pedimental relief of the Good Samaritan; a lesser pediment on the west was to show Christ at the Pool of Bethesda. Models were prepared by Vincent Matthysens, but only in the 19th century did the former project reach fruition. Male and female wards ran southwards from the frontage block, with a capacity of 108 beds in seven wards.

Pressures on space led to the raising of the attic storey in 1793, designed by John Palmer, city architect. An Act of 1830 enabled the construction of thermal baths adjoining the site. Mid-19th century legislation and the pressures of a growing population led to further expansion westwards across Parsonage Lane. Bath Abbey Rectory was acquired to this end in 1856 and demolished in 1858. Discussions to remove the hospital to a new site on Sydney Gardens, occupied by what is now the Holburne Museum, came to nothing.

George Manners and John Elkington Gill were engaged to design the extension and link. The style adopted was, for the time, strikingly deferential to Wood's conception. The estimate for the second building was £8,354, but the total spent was £20,000. It was opened in 1861. The administrative functions of the hospital were moved into the new building, thereby freeing up space for more patients' wards in the older building, enlarging the capacity to 160. A chapel was added to the rear, with stained glass windows depicting biblical scenes of water, and an airing yard beyond.

The hospital's west wing was wholly gutted and the west elevation destroyed by enemy action in April 1942. After a period of uncertainty as to the hospital's future, it was resolved to restore the west block and continue the work of the original foundation. Dr George Kerseley was instrumental in ensuring that the buildings were returned to use, and the west block was largely rebuilt in 1962-1965.

The building is now a rare survival of a public mid-18th century hospital, designed in Wood's prevalent Palladian idiom.