Chapel to the former King Edward VII Hospital

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 04/10/2019

1899/11/66A

EASEBOURNE Kings Drive King Edward VII Estate The Chapel Chapel to the former King Edward VII Hospital

(Formerly listed as Chapel at the King Edward VII Hospital to the west of the main building, WEST HEATH ROAD, previously listed as WEST HEATH ROAD Chapel to King Edward VII Sanatorium)

02-MAR-73

II* Hospital chapel. Rainwater heads dated 1905, chapel opened in 1906. Architects Adams, Holden and Pearson, but stylistically this building is most likely to be by Charles Holden, in a mixture of Free Tudor and Romanesque styles. The chapel was the gift of Sir John Brickwood, a Portsmouth brewer.

This chapel was built to a unique plan as some members of the King's sanatorium committee suggested that an open air plan should be designed for the hospital's tuberculosis sufferers. The architect's response was a V-shaped plan facing south with separate naves for men and women patients, a central chancel, open arcaded cloisters and an open air pulpit for fine weather.

EXTERIOR: built of red and grey bricks in courses. Tiled roof with gablets. Six leaded light casement windows with stone mullions to clerestoreys but south facing Bath stone colonnade of five round-headed arches to each nave and triangular entrances at the outer ends with stone columns. The chancel is octagonal with projecting buttresses at the corners and an octagonal timber turret above the dome with metal weathervane. Bath stone outdoor pulpit in southern intersection of the V.

INTERIOR: naves have barrel-vaulted plastered roofs and stone walls. The former open cloister to the south was sympathetically glazed in 1957 by Brian Poulter following new treatment for tuberculosis. The opposite sides have giant blank round-headed arches. The York stone floor was warmed by the early use of an underfloor piped heating system. The chancel has a Romanesque quality with a series of open and blind arches, some containing subsidiary arches to the lower level. The cardinal sides of the octagon have three arches separated by columned piers. From the piers spring a higher central arch and this whole composition is enclosed in an arched recess. The other sides of the octagon have two arched openings with a central columned support, set within a larger arch. Above this is a single, plain-headed lancet. The chancel furnishings were made by C R Ashbee with pulpit, lectern and altar of carved teak with inlays of ebony.