Windsor House, Belfast City Hospital, 51 Lisburn Road, Belfast, BT9 7AB

Windsor House is a former workhouse school building, constructed in 1874, situated within the grounds of Belfast City Hospital on the Lisburn Road. It is one of only two surviving buildings from the Belfast Union Workhouse, which opened in 1841, the other being the former Fever Hospital now known as Gardner Robb House. Though a significant historical remnant of the workhouse system, extensive internal alterations, mid-20th century refurbishment and later extensions have considerably compromised its architectural and historic interest, and its setting has been further diminished by surrounding modern development.

THE BUILDING

Windsor House is a two-storey building constructed in random basalt brought to courses, with ashlar sandstone dressings including quoins, roundels, platbands and window surrounds. It is laid out on a symmetrical I-plan, facing east, with projecting two-and-a-half-storey pavilion wings to the north and south. Identical two-storey flat-roofed extensions in purple engineering brick abut the north and south elevations centrally, and each of the north and south blocks is terminated at its western end by a lower perpendicular two-storey annexe. Buttresses are present to the pavilion wings and the main block.

The roofscape is varied: the main roof is pitched with angled ridge tiles; the pavilion wings have hipped roofs with roll-moulded lead ridges and hips; and the north and south wings have half-hipped roofs. Natural slate is used throughout. Rainwater goods are generally ogee-profile cast iron over sandstone eaves, with uPVC replacements to the rear over exposed rafter tails.

Windows are varied in type and date. Some original transomed-and-mullioned casements with float glass survive in the south pavilion wing. Elsewhere there are metal casement and uPVC openers to the front elevation, replacement timber casements to the north and south, one-over-one timber sash windows to the extensions, and a mix of timber and metal casements to the rear annexes.

THE PRINCIPAL ELEVATION

The principal elevation faces east. The main block is four windows wide to either side of a central gabled entrance bay. The recessed entrance porch has a modern mosaic-tiled interior and a curved canopy dating from around 1950, with vinyl fixed lettering reading "Windsor House" and a blind loop to the gable. The pavilion wings project forward at either side; a modern porch addition occupies the re-entrant angle of the north pavilion. Each pavilion is three openings wide and two openings deep, with gabled wall-head dormers and roundels detailed with quatrefoil and cartouche ornament.

THE NORTH AND SOUTH ELEVATIONS

The long north and south elevations each have four openings to either side of their respective central extensions. The extensions have irregular openings to all sides and modern entrances. Each elevation is terminated by a slightly lower perpendicular annexe, detailed similarly to the main building but with openings formed in brick and areas of cement render.

THE REAR ELEVATION

The rear elevation is plainly detailed and is abutted by a mid-20th century cream brick service and lift extension.

SETTING

Windsor House occupies a restricted site within the Belfast City Hospital complex, south of the main tower block and surrounded by mid- to late-20th century institutional buildings. To the front are original granite steps with sandstone walls and areas of lawn to the front and north. Bitmac car parking lies to the south and west.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The Belfast Poor Law Union was established on 1st June 1839, covering an area of approximately 75 square miles with a population, based on the 1831 census, projected at 80,512. Construction of the Union Workhouse commenced in 1839; designed to accommodate 1,000 people, it cost £7,000 and admitted its first inmates on 11th May 1841. Poor relief had been introduced to Ireland by the Irish Poor Law of 1838, which divided the country into 130 Poor Law Unions each served by a single workhouse. All Irish workhouses were built to a standard design by George Wilkinson (1814–1890), an Oxford-based architect appointed by the Poor Law Commissioners from 1st February 1839, who had previously designed workhouses in England under the English Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. Wilkinson continued in this role until 1855. His standard design comprised three elements: a Front Building, the Main Building (or body of the house), and an Infirmary Building with Fever Hospital.

The second edition of the Ordnance Survey maps (1858) shows that Belfast Union Workhouse initially followed Wilkinson's standard design. Later editions (1902–1921) record substantial expansion of the site over the intervening decades, driven by the rapid growth of Belfast from the mid-Victorian period onwards. The first major addition came in 1847 with the construction of an H-shaped Fever Hospital to the north side of the workhouse. From 1843 onwards, Poor Law Guardians had been authorised to treat fever victims who were deemed needy but not necessarily destitute enough to require full workhouse relief; prior to that date such individuals had been turned away unless sufficiently impoverished. Fever hospitals at most workhouses were built after 1843, again to a standard Wilkinson design. The former Fever Hospital now serves as the Day Procedure Unit at Belfast City Hospital.

In 1848 the Guardians of Belfast Union constructed a building to accommodate 1,300 poor children and provide education under the National School system, recorded on the second edition Ordnance Survey maps as a rectangular building with numerous extensions located to the south-west of the workhouse. By the 1860s, growing pressure on the site's medical facilities led the Guardians to convert this children's building and school into an infirmary in 1869. Windsor House was built in 1874 to replace it as a schoolhouse, opening on 1st October 1874 to provide accommodation and school facilities for 450 boys and girls. The cost was approximately £10,500; the architect is unknown. The building was first recorded in the Annual Revisions in 1874 as the "Belfast Union Schoolhouse," with an initial total rateable value of £870.

The building first appeared on the third edition Ordnance Survey maps (1902–03) in its current layout and was shown originally to have had its own gate lodge, now demolished. Late-Victorian photographs indicate that the building's general layout and appearance has not been substantially altered over approximately 140 years, though one feature that has since been lost is a small hexagonal tower that rose above the central block, visible in some historic photographs.

The school continued in use for almost 60 years. On 24th December 1871 the building accommodated 693 children, and on 10th December 1890 this figure stood at 634. By 1923, however, the number of child inmates had fallen so sharply that the large school building was no longer required for that purpose. The remaining children were transferred to a smaller structure and, in 1923, the former school building was converted into a hospital for the care of mentally ill patients and renamed Windsor House. Despite this change of use, the Annual Revisions continued to record it as a schoolhouse until their cancellation in 1930. During this period its individual value cannot be determined as it was assessed jointly with the workhouse infirmaries, the combined value standing at £2,195.

By the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland in 1935, the original workhouse, Windsor House, the Fever Hospital and all other buildings on the site were collectively valued at £5,765, the entire site being recorded simply as "Belfast Union Workhouse" and noted as still operated by the Belfast Board of Guardians. With the creation of the National Health Service in 1948 the site passed to the Northern Ireland Hospitals Authority, and from the 1950s to the Ministry of Health and Social Services for Northern Ireland. The former Belfast Union Workhouse was renamed Belfast City Hospital in October 1941. During the Second World War, Windsor House comprised six wards containing 155 hospital beds and cots. By the close of the Second General Revaluation in 1972 all buildings incorporated by Belfast City Hospital, including Windsor House and the Fever Hospital, were jointly valued at £13,040.

Windsor House was extensively renovated in 1960, when the interior was redesigned and modern psychiatric wards were installed. During this period the Northern Ireland Chair of Psychiatry was established at the building and Windsor House became the first University Department of Mental Health. A site for the current hospital tower block was cleared in 1967, resulting in the demolition of most of the original buildings associated with the Belfast Union Workhouse. Windsor House and the former Fever Hospital remain as the only survivors of the workhouse complex and of the early history of poor relief in Belfast.