Former workhouse, 30 Station Road, Antrim, BT41 4AB

Former Workhouse, 30 Station Road, Antrim

This is the surviving front block of a workhouse complex built in 1842–43 for the Board of Guardians of the Antrim Union, designed by George Wilkinson of Oxford, who served as architect to the Poor Law Commissioners in Ireland from 1 February 1839 until 1855. The complex was originally designed to accommodate 700 inmates and was completed on 4 September 1843. It became a hospital in 1921. The remainder of the original complex was demolished between the 1970s and 2003, leaving this front block standing alone, though a former lodge and a later Fever Hospital block have also been retained elsewhere on the original site. The building is a good example of a typical front block of a standardised Irish workhouse complex of the early Victorian period and serves as a physical reminder of the Poor Law system in Ireland, carrying considerable social history for the local community.

Background and Historical Context

The workhouse was built following the Poor Law Act of 1838, which for the first time introduced a universal poor law system into Ireland. Under this system, charitable relief could only be dispensed to those housed within a workhouse. Ireland was divided into 130 areas known as Unions — each formed by the union of several townlands — and each Union was governed by a Board of Guardians responsible for building and administering a workhouse. Wilkinson produced a standardised plan that varied essentially only in the scale of accommodation provided. A simplified form of Tudor style was adopted for almost all the workhouses, probably because of the historical associations of almshouses and charitable institutions with the Tudor period in England.

In the standard layout, the front block — of which this building at Antrim is an example — served as an admissions area containing a porter's room, clerk's office, and boardroom, and incorporated a gatekeeper's annex. Behind it stood the main building, now demolished at Antrim, in the form of a long lateral block with attached wings of two, three, or four storeys, providing strictly segregated accommodation for males and females, with communal facilities in a central rear return and an infirmary block across the end of that return. The outhouses attached to the rear of the front block would typically have contained toilets, washing rooms, cells, a fumigation room, and vagrants' wards.

Although the building's original setting has been substantially altered — the rest of the workhouse complex having been demolished — and the interior has been significantly changed, it retains much of its original exterior character and a number of its original exterior features.

Exterior Description

The building is a two-storey, five-bay structure in a plain Tudor Revival style, with a single-storey, single-bay extension to one end, now standing alone. The main entrance faces north-west.

The north-west (entrance) elevation of the main block consists of a three-bay central recess with gabled dormers and a central doorway, flanked by slightly projecting gabled end bays, each one window wide at first-floor level. The roofs are covered in Bangor blue slates laid in regular courses. Modern flush rooflights are set into the inner pitch of each end bay roof. Two chimneys, smooth cement-rendered, each carry four diagonally set square stacks linked at the top and fitted with four tall, dark-toned original pots. PVC gutters and downpipes are present, with projecting rafter ends between the gables.

The walling is of coursed basalt rubble with painted granite quoins to the extremities of the end bays. Painted granite dressings are used throughout: to all openings, to the weathering of the plinth, to the gable copings, and to a projecting stringcourse that steps up over the central entrance.

The central entrance is formed by a four-centred chamfered arch with a projecting drip mould and shaped label stops, containing a pair of arched panelled timber doors with a modern metal handle. Above the entrance is a small sandstone shield inscribed with the date 1842. Flanking the central entrance on each side are modern replacement rectangular timber windows with fixed lights and side-hung casements, set in block surrounds with projecting cills and square drip mouldings with shaped stops matching those of the entrance. The first-floor windows in the end bays are similar but also incorporate top lights. The first-floor windows in the central recess are similar to those in the end bays but without drip mouldings; their heads rise above the eaves line and are surmounted by small gablets with shaped kneelers. The central gablets and end bay gables each have a narrow arched ventilating lancet in the apex, with block surrounds.

At ground-floor level in the right-hand end bay there is a Tudor-arched doorway with a chamfered surround containing a rectangular timber panelled door with a modern handle and a plain arched fanlight.

The single-storey extension to the right-hand end has similar roofing and walling to the main block and features a Tudor-arched doorway with a drip moulding and label stops, containing an arched timber panelled door with a modern handle.

The north-east elevation is two storeys, with similar roofing and walling to the entrance front but without a stringcourse. PVC rainwater goods and exposed rafter ends are present. Two windows at ground-floor level are small rectangular timber casements set in painted red brick block surrounds, with iron security grilles affixed.

The rear elevation is two storeys and five bays, comprising a three-bay central recess flanked by deep projecting gabled end bays. The roofs are slated as previously described. A central gabled dormer — with shaped timber bargeboards containing a two-light rectangular timber casement window — is flanked by modern flush rooflights in the central recess; similar rooflights are set into the inner pitches of the end bays, one to the left and two to the right. The walling matches that of the entrance front except there is no stringcourse or plinth. Windows are similar to those on the entrance front, set in painted brick block surrounds. A rectangular flush timber door with a modern metal handle serves a doorway to the left-hand side of the central recess. The end bay gables each contain one timber mullioned and transomed window to each floor, with an arched lancet in each apex. The inner-facing side wall of the right-hand wing is blind. The corresponding wall of the left-hand wing has a first-floor doorway containing a rectangular flush timber door leading onto a metal fire escape stair.

Projecting from the north wing to the rear of the building is a range of single-storey outbuildings with lean-to roofs. A screen wall projects from the south wing; both the outbuildings and screen wall return at angled corners to form a wide opening to a partly enclosed rear courtyard. The outer faces of the single-storey wings are blind, built of coursed basalt rubble with a sandstone coping. The inner faces of the screen wall and single-storey wing are also of basalt rubble, with red brick and painted brick dressings to openings in the latter. Roofs are slated as previously described.

The south-west elevation is two storeys with similar roofing and walling to the rear elevation, and has one small flush rooflight. At first-floor level there is a mullioned and transomed window in a granite block surround similar to those elsewhere but without a drip moulding. Two similar windows at ground-floor level are set in painted brick block dressings. A single-storey gabled projection to the left has similar walling and quoins to the extremities, with shaped kneelers; it contains one small rectangular timber casement window in granite block surrounds, and its back wall is blind.

Setting

The building stands in its own grounds set back from the main road, surrounded by lawns containing mature trees and shrubs. A paved pathway runs across the front of the building. The front boundary is formed by a low basalt rubble wall with a vehicular entrance at each end: the left-hand gateway has a pair of low piers without gates; the right-hand gateway has one surviving pier to the left, currently knocked over, also without gates. A tarmac driveway circumscribes the site. The rear courtyard has been given a modern landscaping treatment of pavings and plantings, with modern metal fencing closing the rear approach opening. To the rear of the site, beyond modern timber palisading, a modern shopping centre occupies the footprint of the demolished main workhouse buildings.