(Former Extern Waiting Hall), Royal Victoria Hospital, Grosvenor Road, Belfast, Co Antrim BT12 6BA

Former Extern Waiting Hall, Royal Victoria Hospital

This is an attached, symmetrical, multi-bay single- and two-storey red brick hospital building, built around 1902 in the 'Wrenaissance' style to designs by William Henman of Henman & Cooper. It was constructed to accommodate Belfast's rapidly expanding population following the city's industrial growth, and originally served as the extern waiting hall for the newly built Royal Victoria Hospital. The building is rectangular in plan, facing north, and sits adjacent to the West Wing, with the Sir Ian Fraser Theatre connected to its southeast corner and the rear of the building abutting the Old Corridor. It forms part of a valuable group of neighbouring hospital buildings of considerable social significance in the history of Belfast's development.

Exterior

The roofs are pitched and covered in natural slate with lead ridges and valleys. Several timber louvred lanterns sit along the ridges, each topped with a lead-lined dome and finial. Moulded cast-iron guttering is supported on a dentilated sandstone cornice at eaves height and discharges to cast-iron downpipes. The walls are red brick laid in Flemish bond with sandstone dressings. Window openings are mainly round-headed, and where original, are fitted with single-pane timber sash windows with ogee horns and moulded sandstone sills.

The principal elevation faces north and is symmetrical. At its centre is a double-height entrance bay, to which a later entrance portico of around 1980 has been added. Shallow projecting gables mark either end of the elevation. The central entrance bay forms a shallow breakfront rising above the roofline, surmounted by a dressed sandstone crown cornice that is slightly bellied at the centre and topped by a ball finial. At upper level, a segmental-arched window opening with stepped brick and sandstone headers sits above a tripartite sandstone window frame filled with Art Nouveau style leaded stained glass. The gables are flanked by red brick and flush sandstone engaged pilasters supporting open-base dentilated pediments. The bay immediately to the east of the entrance has a Venetian window opening formed in ashlar sandstone, with a central arched window supported on sandstone columns. The corresponding bay to the west has a single replacement round-arched window with newer brickwork and reconstituted stone sills, suggesting it originally also formed the central opening of a Venetian window. The outer gables formerly contained large round-headed window openings — the eastern one is now blind — with alternating bands of soldier-coursed brick and dressed sandstone heads. A single-storey abutment further to the east has a raised parapet, corner chimney, and is three bays wide with the same sandstone banding and engaged pilasters as the adjoining structure. This abutment is asymmetrical, with two segmental-arched window openings to the left and a segmental-arched door to the right featuring an ornate sandstone aedicule; all openings on this abutment's north elevation are now blind. Behind the entrance bay, a raised gable is visible containing a single oculus formed in brick headers with a scrolled keystone and blocks at the compass points, housing a nine-pane timber window. Dentilated verge detail here matches the cornice below.

The east elevation shows the return face of the single-storey abutment, with sandstone banding, a corner chimney, and engaged pilasters to the north end. The basement storey has a modern casement window adjacent to concrete external steps, and there is evidence of infilled openings around modern extract vent grilles. Beyond this, a later single-storey block over basement has square-headed openings at basement level, segmental-arched openings above, and timber cladding to the upper level. At the southeast end is the Sir Ian Fraser Theatre block, detailed to match the front gables, with a round-arched opening now blind and an engaged pilaster with sandstone banding to the exposed corner.

The rear, south elevation abuts the Old Corridor as a series of flat and hipped roofs extending beyond the east and west gables. The two-storey central section has a central camber-headed opening to the rear gable fitted with a replacement timber casement window, a smaller vent above, and the same dentilated verge detail as elsewhere. The east and west gables have semi-circular windows. The west elevation is hemmed in by a recent modern building and features a bowed central bay; windows here are generally replacement timber casements.

Interior

The interior retains some original detail. Of particular note is the Sir Ian Fraser Theatre, which forms a connected block to the southeast corner of the building.

Historical Background

Belfast's population grew at an extraordinary rate during the 19th century, rising from around 20,000 in 1800 to 70,000 by 1841, over 120,000 by 1871, and 385,000 by 1911 — by far the largest urban population in Ireland. This growth placed severe pressure on the existing Belfast Royal Hospital on Frederick Street, and by the end of the 1800s a new hospital was clearly needed. The Royal Victoria Hospital was built at the junction of the Grosvenor and Falls Roads, designed by William Henman of Henman & Cooper, who had previously been responsible for the Birmingham General Hospital. McLaughlin and Harvey won the building contract in September 1900, the foundation stone was laid in early 1901, and the hospital was officially opened on 27 July 1903 by King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra during their visit to Ireland.

This building was originally the extern waiting hall. On Henman's architectural plan of 1902 it appears as a rectangular block projecting northwards from the main ward block, with the entrance in the north wall opening into a waiting hall with rooms on either side, which led through to the connecting corridor of the main ward block. A photograph of 1903 shows the roofed interior of the waiting hall. Above the door leading through to the main ward block was the Good Samaritan window, which had been brought from the earlier Royal Belfast Hospital, where it had been donated by Sir William Whitla in 1886. It was transferred to the Royal Victoria Hospital in 1903. The four coats of arms in the window represent the early history of the hospital and of Queen's University. In 1947 the Good Samaritan window was relocated to the main corridor, as a result of alterations that split the extern waiting hall horizontally. Outpatient facilities remained largely unchanged on the ground floor, while surgical and gynaecological outpatients were moved to the new upper floor, which was also used as a Central Registry for patients' records. In 1969 these functions were transferred to the new Austen Boyd Outpatient Building, and in 1973 the ground floor was altered to accommodate the Ganymede catering system and cardiac catheterisation facilities. According to Larmour, Young and Mackenzie designed an extension to the extern waiting hall and an octagonal post-mortem room in 1925, though this is not confirmed in the Dictionary of Irish Architects. The building is now used for a variety of different purposes.

Setting

The building is located within the grounds of the Royal Victoria Hospital, situated between a large modern block to the west and the Musgrave, East and West Wings to the east. A tarmac parking area lies immediately to the front, enclosed by a red brick wall along the boundary with Grosvenor Road.