The Almshouses, Also Known As Fox'S Hospital

The Almshouses, also known as Fox's Hospital

Built between 1688 and 1690, this is a group of almshouses with a wardenry and schoolroom, designed by Alexander Fort, Joiner to His Majesty's Office of Works, for Sir Stephen Fox. Fox was Paymaster to the forces under James II, Charles II, and Queen Anne, and was a benefactor and collaborator of Sir Christopher Wren at Chelsea Hospital. The brickwork is Flemish bond, using bricks from Knightswood, laid by Edward Holder, a bricklayer. The roofs are tiled. The total cost of construction was £1,835 8 shillings and 8 pence.

The building follows a symmetrical plan with a central block of two storeys and attic, housing the warden's accommodation and communal rooms, flanked by wings containing six dwellings each for poor elderly persons—men to the east, women to the west.

The wardenry elevation comprises four window bays and features two tall panelled doors with glazed upper sections and overlights; the right door is fixed, probably originally opening to the great hall and schoolroom. Wide segmental relieving arches frame the doors, with a flat canopy on brackets supported by wrought iron. The windows are stained oak with leaded glazing; ground floor windows have segmental arches. A plat band runs at floor level.

The most notable feature is a Portland stone dedication panel set centrally between the upper windows, topped by a broken pediment. It reads: "DED OPT MAX Bonarum Omnium Largitori / ISThoc Quantutumcunque Grati Animi / Monumentum acceptum Refert / SCHOLAE hujus et PTOCHOTROPHII / Fundator humilis et gratabundus / Anno Salutis Reparatae / MDCLXXXI / Quid Tibi Diritiae prosunt quas congeris Hospes / Solasquas dederis semper habebis opes."

The roof is hipped with two hipped dormers. Four chimney stacks rise on the side walls. To the rear, two conjoined gables are flanked by minor gables at a lower level.

The almshouse dwellings originally comprised two rooms, one above the other, with a buttery and fuel store at the rear. Later alterations modified the rear to provide two bedrooms under a hipped roof. Each elevation has two closely spaced stained oak two-light windows on the upper floor and one door plus a two-panelled door on the ground floor. The doors are paired together under a floating hipped tiled roof. A single door nearest the wardenry leads to a laundry on the right and kitchen on the left.

The interior retains significant features. The right room, probably the original hall and now used as a living room, has a Purbeck fireplace, likely of the early 18th century, and 16th- to 17th-century cupboard doors set as an overmantel in the early 20th century. A similar fireplace appears in the dining room to the rear.

The principal chamber on the first floor at the front is notable for its plaster ceiling with moulded arms of Sir Stephen Fox with supporters—one a fox fretty, the other plain—and other arms in three corner cartouches. The early 18th-century fireplace has a moulded surround with pulvinated frieze and an overmantel displaying an oil portrait of Sir Stephen Fox in an eared architraved frame. The rear parlour features bolection-moulded panelling and wood cornice, together with a bolection fireplace. A cornice appears in the smaller bedroom, accompanied by 17th- and 18th-century panelling, augmented in the 19th century and later fixed elsewhere. The almshouses themselves contain a single fireplace and newel stair each. Those in the east wing were altered to form larger units.

The rear wall of the Wardenry has been extended to form a garden enclosed by high brick walls; the end cross wall was rebuilt around 1985.