Freedom House

Freedom House is a building that was originally the Board of Guardians office for a hospital, later used as a nurses' home, and is still part of the hospital today. It was built in 1909, with a foundation stone that includes a list of guardians and an inscription dating from 1630 to 1708. The materials used include Plymouth limestone, brick, and freestone dressing, topped with a dry slate sprocketed mansard roof featuring a modillion and egg-and-dart eaves cornice. The building has tall brick stacks with modillions at the entablature over the cross walls, mansard windows with moulded cornices, and wider windows with paired sashes and triangular pediments over two of the front bays on the left and right.

Architecturally, Freedom House is designed in the Edwardian Baroque style and consists of two storeys plus an attic, with a symmetrical five-bay front. The original horned sashes with glazing bars are present, with the ground-floor sashes being taller. The central entrance bay rises to three storeys and features tripartite windows at mid-floor level. This bay is slightly set forward and has rusticated brick quoins, topped with an open segmental pediment that has a cornice matching the eaves cornice. The second-floor window has a moulded keyed arch, a moulded transom, and a moulded sill adorned with a swagged festoon, while the first-floor window has a moulded sill. The wide doorway features a segmental-arched hood on corbels, with a tympanum that includes a cartouche and a pair of doors with roundel glazing set back. The flanking bays have rusticated brick jambs and shallow segmental keyed arches, except for the second and sixth bays from the left, which have canted tripartite sashes under simple keyed arches and a first-floor sill string. The left and right-hand bays have inscribed ground-floor panels under pediments with cartouches. The other elevations are also unaltered and exhibit similar details.

Inside, the building features simple joinery detail and plaster cornicing. Freedom House is a rare building type with a very competent design and has survived unaltered.