Former Enniskillen Workhouse, Erne Road, Enniskillen, County Fernanagh, BT74 6NN

Former Enniskillen Workhouse Front Building, Erne Road, Enniskillen

This is the front building of the former Enniskillen Union Workhouse, built in 1841 to a design by George Wilkinson, the Poor Law Commissioners' appointed architect for Ireland. It is a two-storey structure built in the Tudor almshouse style that Wilkinson employed for the majority of Irish workhouses, and represents one of the earlier and smaller examples of this type. It is the only part of the original workhouse complex to have survived in largely original form, the remainder of the buildings having been either demolished or substantially absorbed into a large 20th-century hospital development. As such, it stands as an important physical record of the social history of Enniskillen and its surrounding area. Workhouses of this type are becoming increasingly rare in Northern Ireland, with many having been totally demolished or more substantially altered elsewhere.

The building is set on the eastern side of the hospital site, which occupies a rise to the north of Enniskillen town centre. In plan, the original block is capital 'I'-shaped, with a central rectangular portion and two square end blocks, each terminating to the front in a full-height gabled bay, with deeper bays and returns to the rear. Originally, narrow single-storey outhouse wings with angled corners extended from the returns, enclosing two rear yards. Only the southern wing survives intact; the northern wing was partially cleared away, probably in the 1860s, to make way for a sympathetic two-storey addition. The yards themselves are now largely covered by more recent utilitarian extensions. At the north end there is a small single-storey porch projection flush with the front façade, behind which sits a relatively large flat-roofed late 20th-century addition.

The walls of the original building and the circa 1860s addition are constructed from rock-faced snecked limestone with raised pointing. Window and door openings to the front elevation have dressed limestone surrounds with drip mouldings to some. The roofs of the original sections are relatively steeply pitched and covered with large blue-black slates; the verges have parapets with carved stone kneelers, and the eaves are overhanging with exposed rafter ends. Several tall cut-stone chimneystacks sit on the ridge lines, each consisting of four square stacks set on a plain rectangular base, linked by a chamfered stone cap. At the centre of the southern face of the central roof section is a small gabled dormer with a slated overhanging roof and decorative bargeboards.

The later additions, which appear to be largely mid to late 20th-century, are finished in either brick or render, with shallow, almost flat pitches mainly covered in industrial metal cladding. Rainwater goods throughout the building are largely uPVC, with some extruded aluminium sections.

Notwithstanding the porch projection to the right, the roughly east-facing front elevation is symmetrical. The central portion has a ground-floor doorway with a Tudor-arched opening, dressed cut-stone chamfered reveals, and a ledged and sheeted timber double-leaf door with full-height panels to the front. The uppermost part of the opening has been boarded up to accommodate modern signage. The doorway is flanked by flat-headed window openings with similar reveals and stone sills, and the entire grouping is covered by a continuous drip moulding, with a similar moulded stringcourse above that stretches across the whole frontage. Set between these two mouldings, directly above the doorway, is a shield-shaped date stone inscribed '1841', and above this is a metal Sun fire insurance plaque. The upper floor of the central section has three window openings set close to the eaves, each topped with a gablet with carved stone kneelers similar to those on the larger gables. At either end of the front façade, the breakfront bays each contain a single upper-floor window opening. The porch has a doorway to the front similar in character to the main entrance but fitted with a plain ledged and sheeted single-leaf door.

The southern façade merges to the left with the high stone wall of the outhouses that formerly enclosed the yard on that side. Window openings here are asymmetrically arranged and lack the chamfered reveals and mouldings of the front elevation. The wall to the left has a round-headed opening at its angled corner.

The rear, west-facing façade has an untidy appearance as a result of the various 20th-century alterations and additions. To the right of the central passageway that formerly divided the yards are two two-storey additions: one flat-roofed and finished in unpainted render, the other with a mono-pitch roof and finished in red facing brick. The former yard walls have been incorporated into structures that now enclose the former yard spaces, and the wall to the left side has been raised significantly by means of modern cladding. Window openings to this side are flat-headed with plain cut-stone sills and are generally informally arranged.

The northern façade is largely obscured by a late 20th-century single-storey extension, finished in plain ruled-and-lined render with a single-pitch roof, and a freestanding Portacabin. Window openings here are again flat-headed and informally arranged.

Window frames throughout the building are mainly uPVC replacements. However, the rear dormer has retained its original timber frame, complete with central mullion and glazing bars, and there is a similar original timber frame — without the mullion — to the window on the north side of the porch.

Historical background

The date stone over the entrance indicates that construction of the Enniskillen Union Workhouse began in 1841. Possibly due to administrative difficulties, the building was not completed until March 1844, and only finally opened on 1st December 1845. It was built at a cost of £8,750, with fittings amounting to a further £1,415. The complex originally comprised the front building to the east, the main body of the house some distance to the west, the infirmary beyond that, and freestanding fever and cholera hospitals to the south (the fever hospital opened in 1849). The workhouse was designed to accommodate 1,000 inmates, but the effects of the Great Famine meant that by May 1847 it was housing 1,433. Between 1845 and 1851, a total of 10,500 people passed through its doors, of whom over 2,000 died there. Numbers declined steadily in the latter half of the 19th century, and by 1901 there were 203 inmates. In the early 20th century the workhouse, like many others, assumed the functions of a district hospital, becoming Erne Hospital after 1948. In the process, most of the component buildings were adapted, extended, or demolished, with much of the complex cleared away in the later 1950s.

The front building is the only element to have survived in largely original form. It originally consisted of the main 'I' (or 'H') shaped block. Sometime after 1858 — possibly in the early 1860s — the extension to the northern return was added, with a shallow two-storey brick rear projection built prior to 1905. Another relatively shallow section had also been added to the outer side of the outhouses fringing the northern yard by that date, but this has since been removed. The yards were built over in the late 20th century. The building currently serves as offices for estate administration.

George Wilkinson and the Irish workhouse programme

Wilkinson, previously based in Oxford, had already built a number of workhouses for English unions including those at Chipping Norton, Thame, and Witney when he was appointed as architect to the Irish Poor Law Commissioners on 1st February 1839. Within two months of taking up his post he had devised model plans on which almost all Irish workhouse buildings would be based. His brief from the Commissioners stated that the style of building was intended to be of the cheapest description compatible with durability, with effect aimed at through harmony of proportion and simplicity of arrangement, and all mere decoration studiously excluded. Nevertheless, Wilkinson's preference for the then-fashionable Tudor style — intended to evoke notions of 15th- and 16th-century almshouses — ensured the buildings were not as purely functional as this brief might suggest. He remained in post until 30th September 1855, when Treasury pressure forced the Commissioners to reduce expenditure; he subsequently established a private practice in Dublin.

The standard workhouse layout devised by Wilkinson consisted of three main parts. At the front was the entrance building, set approximately 150 feet in front of the main workhouse, which contained the board room on the first floor; the clerk's office and porter's room; probationary and vagrants' wards on the first and ground floors respectively; outhouses including privies, washing rooms, and refractory (punishment) cells; sometimes a fumigation room for clothing; and a small gatekeeper's annex. Behind this was the main body of the house, with a spine extension at the back at right angles containing utility rooms. The infirmary completed the basic H-shaped plan, though it could not be reached from the body of the house without going outside. Around the buildings was a complex of exercise yards, each surrounded by a high wall. The Enniskillen front building conforms to this established pattern and represents one of the earlier, smaller versions of the type.