Front of Original Hospital, Royal Victoria Hospital, Grosvenor Road, Belfast, Co. Antrim, BT12 6BA

Front of Original Hospital, Royal Victoria Hospital, Grosvenor Road, Belfast

This is the original entrance front of the Royal Victoria Hospital, built around 1901 and attributed to the Birmingham architects Henman and Cooper, in a style loosely described as 'Wrenaissance'. It is one of the most historically significant hospital buildings in the world: it was the first public building anywhere to be fitted with air-conditioning for human comfort, and its architectural concept was revolutionary at the time of construction. The building is grade B+.

Historical Background

Belfast expanded at a phenomenal rate during the 19th century. Its population grew from around 20,000 in 1800 to 385,000 by 1911, making it by far the largest city in Ireland. This put enormous pressure on medical facilities, particularly the Belfast Royal Hospital in Frederick Street, and by the end of the 1890s a new hospital was clearly needed. The Royal Victoria Hospital was funded through public subscription organised by the Right Honourable W. J. Pirrie (later Lord Pirrie) and his wife Margaret. It was built at the junction of the Grosvenor and Falls Roads. William Henman of Henman and Cooper, who had previously designed Birmingham General Hospital, was appointed architect in 1898. The construction contract was won by McLaughlin and Harvey in September 1900, with Henry Lea as consulting engineer. The foundation stone was laid early in 1901, and the hospital was officially opened on 27 July 1903 by King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra during their visit to Ireland.

The Pioneering Air-Conditioning System

Although the building's 'Wrenaissance' architectural dress is conventional for its period, Paul Larmour described it as 'a building of international renown and a revolution in hospital design'. The revolutionary element was the Plenum system of forced ventilation — an early form of air-conditioning — which was integrated into the architectural concept from the outset. The standard approach to hospital design at the time was the pavilion layout, in which tall, narrow ward buildings were arranged to allow natural cross-ventilation. This approach was inefficient for a forced-ventilation system because of the large areas of exposed external wall it required. Henman and Cooper instead adopted a uniquely compact plan form that minimised duct length while maximising the number of wards served.

A single-storey engine house to the east contained twin axial fans, driven by steam engines powered by waste steam from the hospital laundry, which drew clean outside air in through coconut coir screens. The air was heated or cooled via coiled pipes and then driven along a 500-foot brick duct running below the full length of the main corridor, tapering from nine feet wide at the eastern end to six feet at the western end. A series of branch ducts in brick ran off this main duct at right angles, rising to distribute clean air at regular intervals aligned with bed spaces in the parallel rows of top-lit single-storey wards. Stale air was extracted overhead and discharged through octagonal louvered vents at the end of each ward. Reyner Banham's three-dimensional cut-away axonometric drawing, published in his Guide to Modern Architecture (1962), best illustrates the concept.

The two fans were manufactured by Samuel Cleland Davidson of Davidson's Sirocco Engineering Works in Belfast, who also installed and commissioned the entire system. Although Henman and Cooper are credited as architects and Henry Lea as consulting engineer, a detailed history of the Plenum system compiled by the Royal Hospitals' Estate Department notes that it bears striking similarities to the forced-ventilation systems used in shipbuilding at the Sirocco Works, strongly suggesting Davidson's influence on the design. Several members of the hospital's board of management also had shipbuilding backgrounds, lending further weight to this interpretation. The building is therefore as much an engineering achievement as an architectural one.

The long single-storey wards that the system was designed to serve have since been demolished to make way for a modern hospital building, but the engine house, the main duct, and the main corridor all survive, and the engine remains in working order.

Overall Description

The listing covers the attached symmetrical multi-bay single-storey red brick original hospital entrance together with the transverse Old Corridor abutting it to the rear on an east-west axis, which connects to the engine house at its eastern end. The building is irregular in plan, facing north into a courtyard enclosed by the Musgrave Wing and the east and west wings. All the wards that originally led off the Old Corridor have been demolished, though to the east two of the original three-stage square towers survive near the engine house, with a modern metal-clad building attached to the north.

The roofs are finished in natural slate with lead ridges and lead valleys. The raised central section of the entrance front carries a timber louvered lantern to the ridge, surmounted by a lead-lined dome and finial. The Old Corridor has a natural slate roof with a lead ridge and a series of fixed-pane skylights set into angled eaves on either side. Moulded cast-iron guttering is carried on a dentilated sandstone ashlar eaves course, with cast-iron downpipes. The walls are red brick laid in Flemish bond with sandstone dressings. Window openings are largely square-headed with single-pane timber sash windows having ogee horns and moulded sandstone sills.

The North Entrance Front

The symmetrical north elevation is composed of a central double-height gabled entrance bay with an entrance portico, flanked by two recessed bays, which are in turn flanked by a pair of advanced gabled projections. All three gables are framed by red brick and flush sandstone engaged pillars supporting open-base dentilated pediments. The two side gables have Venetian window openings executed in ashlar sandstone, with the central arched window supported on columns and a fixed fanlight to the arch. The small recessed bays are enclosed by decorative sandstone Renaissance-style balustrades and later decorative iron railings.

The central gable is fronted by a flat-roofed portico comprising a depressed central arch supported on paired sandstone blocked columns and a full-span sandstone lintel surmounted by a deep cornice. A shallow scrolled and dentilated pediment over the central opening carries a copper globe on an elaborate scrolled keystone. A red brick parapet wall over the portico has moulded sandstone coping. The cheeks of the portico have diminutive square-headed window openings with sandstone surrounds and decorative leaded stained glazing in the Art Nouveau style. The portico floor is ramped in concrete, and the entrance is fitted with replacement timber doors having glazed upper panes.

The central double-height entrance bay has six small square windows — three on either side of the lower ridge level — with a continuous flush sandstone lintel and sill. The east side elevation is blank and is abutted by a later single-storey over-basement flat-roofed wing that connects the building to the East Wing. This connecting wing has two camber-headed window openings with iron grilles and a lean-to canopy over the basement. The rear elevation faces south and is abutted by the transverse Old Corridor on an east-west axis, which terminates in the wing containing the Engine House to the east. Two three-stage towers, separated by a later duo-pitched extension, abut the south elevation adjacent to the engine house. A single round-headed former window opening is visible to the central gable overlooking the corridor. The west elevation is blank and is abutted by a further wing built around 1950 connecting the building to the West Wing.

The Engine House

The engine house to the east consists of a symmetrical gable-fronted red brick and sandstone block connected to the Old Corridor via a taller block flanked by a pair of three-stage towers. It has pitched natural slate roofs with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles, moulded cast-iron guttering, and cast-iron downpipes. The north and south elevations each have seven square-headed openings with a continuous flush sandstone lintel and sandstone sills. These openings contain timber louvres — still visible although partly boarded up — which were originally the air intake grilles for the pioneering air-conditioning system. The central three openings each have a semi-circular window above with brick and sandstone arches.

The east front elevation has a projecting central gabled bay with a central replacement timber double door, an original timber-framed multi-paned overlight, and two sash windows on either side with original multi-pane timber windows and bottom-hung overlights. A continuous lintel with a pedimented stone sits over the door, above which is a circular window set within a recessed circular brick opening with sandstone voussoirs. Six cast-iron pattress plates are equally spaced between windows. There are three window openings to each side of the projecting bay; those to the south are boarded up, the central opening to the north bay has been lowered to ground level, and its window replaced with a steel roller shutter.

The Interior: The Black and White Hall and Old Corridor

The entrance hall, known as the Black and White Hall, retains a sumptuous dark interior with a wealth of commemorative history recorded in the form of plaques, tablets, and busts. Above it is a glass dome featuring signs of the zodiac. The stained glass and leaded lights were made by W. J. Douglas of Ward and Partners. The naturally lit Old Corridor likewise retains much of its original internal and external fabric. Doors from the entrance hall originally led to the connecting corridor of the main ward block and to the board room.

Historical Associations and Setting

At the opening of the hospital in July 1903, a bronze statue of Queen Victoria was unveiled and originally positioned over the door of the original entrance. It has since been relocated to the ground in front of this entrance, at the centre of the quadrangle. The Musgrave Building, added in 1925, was built in front of the former main entrance and, together with the east and west wings, formed a quadrangle around it.

The building forms an important part of the wider Royal Victoria Hospital complex. It is located to the rear of the Musgrave Wing within an internal courtyard, on an extensive hospital site bounded by Grosvenor Road to the north, Falls Road to the west, and the Westlink to the south and east. Larmour's description of the building as 'reassuring' captures both its rational, well-ordered quality and its warm attention to detail. The Historic Buildings listing notes that the buildings fronting Grosvenor Road are 'handsome' and that 'their continuing presence, apart from considerable architectural significance, provides familiarity and reassurance.'