The Royal Bucks Hospital

The Royal Bucks Hospital is a hospital, currently unoccupied, constructed between approximately 1860 and 1862 by David Brandon, with a planform influenced by Florence Nightingale. A rear wing was added in 1908 by F Taylor, and other alterations occurred in the later 20th century; these later 20th-century alterations are not of interest. The building is constructed of red brick with stone floor and sill bands, quoins to the central block, and stone architraves and cornice. It has slated roofs, dormers, tall chimney stacks to the central block, and ventilators to the left-hand pavilion. The central block is a five-window administrative block of three storeys, with an attic and basement, and is flanked by two-storey, basement pavilion wards of seven windows each, with projecting end bays. The right-hand pavilion has a mid-20th century addition of a third storey. The central entrance features a stone portico with paired columns and pillars, rectangular bands, a dentil entablature, a balcony with inset panels and ball finials, and a pedimented first-floor window with a central colonette. The ground floor sashes have segmental arched architraves with keystones, and the projecting bays contain round-arched niches with quoins at the angles. The first floor architraved sashes have cornices on short pilaster supports with enriched corbels. A bracketed cornice is present on the left-hand pavilion. The third-floor sashes of the central block are architraved and feature a cornice with a sawtooth frieze, which supports a brick parapet with a central carved stone segmental pediment depicting the Buckinghamshire coat of arms and inscribed 'Anno Domini MDCCCLX1'. Originally called the Buckinghamshire General Infirmary, this hospital was one of the first in England to adopt a pavilion plan and the first civil pavilion planned hospital to be completed and in use. Florence Nightingale was personally involved in the design, which she published in the third edition of her 'Notes on Hospital Design' in 1863 as an exemplar. The building is listed primarily for its significance in the development of mid-19th century hospital planning.