Royal National Hospital And Chest Clinic

The Royal National Hospital and Chest Clinic, built in 1855 by E B Lamb, was originally designed as the Royal National Sanatorium for Diseases of the Chest. It features a powerful style typical of Lamb, showcasing a rustic Italianate design with influences from Vanbrugh. The building is constructed from coursed Purbeck rubble with stone dressings that exhibit strongly marked tooling, sometimes vermiculated.

The south front of the hospital is two storeys high and asymmetrical, topped with a hipped slate roof. The recessed centre is three windows wide and includes later iron verandahs, flanked by a two-storey canted bay on the west and a two-storey square bay with a high chateau roof on the east. All windows have segmental heads adorned with large keystones and notably large bracketed 'shoulder stones' that rest on vestigial block capitals. There are blocky stringcourses at three different levels, and the spandrels below the sills are recessed, featuring projecting stone panels.

The square bay windows are tripartite, with mullions on substantial bases and plinths, and shoulder brackets that form tulip-shaped capitals. The eaves cornice has large brackets, although some have been removed from the canted bay and centre. The chimneys are of an Italianate style, coupled and set on high bases, with stepped-out capping and pyramidal tops to the stacks.

A similar wing was added to the west in 1803, which is three windows wide. A further extension to the west, built around 1880 and attributed to Sir Arthur Blomfield, features regular segment-headed first-floor windows, with tripartite windows in the projecting end pavilion. The wings to the north are two storeys and four storeys high, both with hipped roofs.

Lamb's north front has undergone significant alterations and extensions but still retains the original entrance front, which is three windows wide, with a fourth window bay that projects, maintaining the same detailing. The projecting kitchen and service wing has an irregular composition, featuring a doorway with a segmental head (including a keystone and shoulder stones) on brackets and chamfered jambs, and a first-floor pair of segmental windows gathered under a very wide segmental arch that resembles a quasi-lunette.