Queen Elizabeth's Hospital

Queen Elizabeth's Hospital is a school built between 1844 and 1847 by Thomas Foster and Son. It is constructed of squared red rubble with limestone dressings, limestone ashlar stacks, and a roof that is not visible. The building is arranged along an axial, single-depth plan and is in the Tudor Gothic Revival style.

The school has three storeys and a 19-window range, with two-storey, five-window wings extending at each end. The front and rear elevations are largely symmetrical, though built on a sloping site, resulting in a basement ground floor on the rear. The window arrangement is 1:6:1:3:1:6:1, with a central four-storey, five-window block projecting forward, with the middle section stepping forward twice. Square, four-storey towers flank each corner, all with battered ground floors. Architectural details include a moulded band to the ground floor, a first-floor string, continuous drip moulds, a second-floor cornice with carved heads and flowers, and an ashlar parapet crenellated on the four-storey sections. The main entrance features a Tudor-arched doorway set in a rectangular moulded frame with recessed spandrels, carved label stops, and a two-leaf ribbed door. The corner towers have tall, flat, two-centred arched doorways with four cinquefoil-headed overlights above flat-headed two-leaf doors. Windows are generally cross windows with early 20th-century metal casements; some original cast-iron casements with small lattice panes remain on the rear. Ground-floor windows are shallow two-centred arches, while upper floors have flat-headed windows with Tudor-arched lights. The central block has cinquefoil-headed lights, a two-storey four-light oriel to the centre with a moulded base and crenellated top, narrow flanking windows, an outer first-floor two-light canted oriel and a cross window above. The third floor has a central cross window and flanking single-light windows. The wings have first-floor cross windows and three-storey square towers at their ends. There are two lateral stacks on each side behind the front parapet, with three square stacks linked by a crenellated cornice, and further chimney ranges on each side of the central block. The ends have steeply-gabled ashlar parapets.

The interior includes a large entrance stair hall with Tudor arches to each side, five to the axial passage, an open-well stair with openwork tracery balustrade, a large panelled octagonal newel with an ogee-domed top, and a timber roof with bosses. Originally containing full-length teaching and dormitory rooms on each side, these are now mostly divided, with the exception of the first-floor left-hand side, which retains arch-braced tie beam roofs. Tudor-arched doorways with panelled doors are present.

The school was founded in 1586 by John Carr. The building displays early use of internal structural cast-iron beams and stanchions to support the floors, and represents a Salvinesque composition leveraging a dramatic hillside location.