Gatepiers & Gates, Railings, Boundary Walls, King's Cross Hospital, Dundee

King's Cross Hospital opened in 1889 as Dundee's first permanent fever hospital to treat infectious disease. It was designed by the Dundee burgh engineer, William Mackison, and his assistant James Thomson. The earliest structures at the hospital site comprise a late-19th century and early-20th century administration building and a network of five former ward pavilions all connected by covered walkways around a central, octagonal clock tower. There are two gatelodges to the north and east of the hospital site, and a detached service building to the south of the westernmost pavilions.

Administration Building

The administration building was built in 1889 as a modest two-storey, three-bay villa and extended, between 1900 and 1902, into a Jacobean-style, symmetrical, two-storey, seven-bay building with a central, three-stage, French pavilion-roofed tower with tripartite window openings, a dentilled eaves course and iron brattishing on the roof. The front (north) elevation is ashlar-faced with gabled end bays, double-height canted windows and mullioned window openings. The main entrance is through the central tower. The entrance door has a fanlight and is flanked by sidelights glazed with patterned and coloured glass. There is a balustraded cornice above the entrance opening and raised band courses across the front and side elevations of the building. The side elevations have regularly spaced window openings and central, corniced chimneystacks. The windows are predominantly two-pane uPVC sash and case replacements. The roof is covered in slates and there are two dormer windows to the right-hand bay.

The interior was seen in 2023. The interior is now largely fitted out as offices and retains some late-19th century timber and plasterwork, fixtures and fittings. These include moulded cornicing, deep skirting, window shutters, timber-panelled doors and decorative coloured glass in the stair windows. The entrance foyer of the original two-storey, three-bay house retains its tiled mosaic floor with the Dundee City Coat of Arms.

Covered Walkways and Clock Tower

A covered and glazed walkway extends from the rear of the administration building and slopes downwards towards a central connecting node, surmounted by a clock tower with four pedimented clock faces and topped by an iron finial. There are two other nodes (to the east and west) where the corridors intersect, which have doorways leading to the grounds. The walkways have mid-height ashlar stone walls with plate glass glazing above and some later infill. The roofs are pitched and covered in slates with decorative timber bargeboarding to the eaves.

Ward Pavilions

The corridor network links to five ward pavilions constructed in coursed and snecked stone, the two to the east of the central clock tower date from 1889 and the three to the west were built by 1902. The single-storey ward pavilions are roughly rectangular on plan with hipped-roofed chamfered extensions and hipped-roofed, square-plan toilet blocks at each end. They have blind oculi openings in the gable heads, contrasting margins, moulded skewputts and projecting band courses. There are small rectangular discharge blocks at the entrance to each pavilion with tiled interior schemes. The pavilions have some later 20th century, low, brick-built infill and extensions (these are excluded from the listing). The windows are predominantly uPVC replacements throughout. The roofs are slated, some with ventilators, and a mixture of corniced end and ridge chimneystacks (some now truncated or removed). The interiors of the western pavilions have lowered ceilings and are fitted out as offices and conference spaces. The eastern pavilions are in a mixture of office and clinical use with largely late-20th century decorative schemes.

Ancillary Buildings

Ancillary hospital buildings, south of the administration building, comprise the former kitchen and dining areas (now the cafeteria), former staff accommodation, a two-storey former laundry block, and ventilation and cold storage facilities (located to the south of the clock tower). The former laundry is two storeys in height with bipartite window openings to the first floor, a hipped roof with tall, shouldered chimneystacks and a truncated washhouse chimney at the southwest corner of the block. There is a single-storey, roughly rectangular-plan detached building to the southwest of the pavilion-plan hospital buildings (now known as the Electrician's Workshop). This building has a flat-roofed entrance porch and a hipped roof overall with a central ventilator along the roof ridge and an end chimneystack.

Gatelodges

Built by 1902, the two-storey, three-bay east gatelodge (along Hospital Street) was the hospital ambulance station. It has a stable to the ground floor with timber stalls, tiled walls and a floor composed of setts (small paving stones). There is accommodation on the first floor. The building has a hipped roof with shouldered and corniced chimneystacks. It has a later forestair on the north elevation and a glazed, single-storey, early-20th century extension on the west elevation (which are both excluded from the listing).

The north gatelodge (built in 1894) is a single-storey, irregular plan former porter's lodge along Clepington Road. It has a projecting west-facing gable with a bay window and a squared entrance porch in the re-entrant angle. The roof is covered in slates with moulded skewputts and a finial to the gable apex and three truncated chimneystacks.

Boundary Walls, Railings and Gates

Low stone walls bound the site along Clepington Road. These are topped by cast and wrought iron railings designed by Walter MacFarlane and Co. of the Saracen Foundry in Glasgow and dating from 1889. The railings are on a cast iron cope with wavy kris finials (shaped like Javanese kris daggers) and moulded balusters with scrolled wrought iron bracket supports. There are two vehicle entrances along the road with pairs of chamfered ashlar gatepiers. The east entrance (next to the north lodge) has an ornate pedestrian gate and flanking square-section cast iron ball-finialled gateposts (signed W MacFarlane and Co Glasgow at the base). The stone gatepiers are topped by cast iron bases for gas lamps (the lamps have been removed). Stone boundary walls with semi-circular coping extend around the corner along Hospital Street. There are three stone gatepiers with pyramidal caps at the east gatelodge, forming a vehicle and pedestrian entrance with later iron gates.

Historical Development

King's Cross Hospital was built as a purpose-built 'fever hospital' to treat and care for patients with infectious diseases. Following a mild outbreak of scarlet fever in 1882, a report prepared by Dr A M Anderson, the Medical Officer of Health for Dundee, highlighted that hospital provision within the City of Dundee was inadequate should a large-scale outbreak of infectious disease occur.

In 1887, the Dundee Police Commissioners resolved to erect a new, purpose-built hospital on the King's Cross site. It replaced a handful of small fever hospitals in and around Dundee City, including a temporary fever hospital that had been built in 1877 off Clepington Road on what is now the King's Cross Hospital site (as shown on the 1887-8 Dundee Town Plan). Dundee also retained a smallpox hospital (built in 1867 by the Town Council), northwest of King's Cross and known as King's Cross Hospital West (built 1893, closed 1979 and demolished 1987).

The new King's Cross Hospital was opened by Lord Provost Hunter on 11 December 1889 as the Dundee Infectious Diseases Hospital. The new hospital was designed by the Dundee burgh engineer, William Mackison (1833-1906) alongside his assistant, James Thomson (1852-1927), and Dr A M Anderson. Dr Anderson died soon after the hospital opened and he was succeeded in the role by Dr Charles Templeman, who became the first Medical Superintendent of King's Cross Hospital.

A sketch in the Dundee Courier (11 December 1889), upon the opening of the site, shows the proposed layout of the hospital. It depicts a large, symmetrical administration block, ancillary hospital buildings and seven ward pavilions all connected via covered walkways to a central clock tower with gatelodges at the north and east entrances. This vision of the site developed over a couple of decades.

The Dundee Town Plans of 1888 to 1893 show the early layout of the hospital site. The first buildings constructed were the administration building and two ward pavilions (to the east) connected by walkways to ancillary hospital blocks behind the administration building (these housed the kitchen and laundry blocks). Two rectangular-plan ranges of the earlier epidemic hospital were retained until around 1901-2, when they were replaced by three new pavilions with sanitary annexes and discharge blocks.

A historic image of the administration building (dated 1889) shows it was originally a domestic-scale, two-storey, three-bay villa with a projecting gable and canted windows to the left, a central entrance door, corniced end chimneystacks and a corniced wallhead chimneystack to the front elevation. This was the only two-storey building on-site at that time, and it functioned as the main entrance into the hospital complex. It contained accommodation for the medical officer, matron and nurses and housed a dispensary, waiting rooms and toilets for visitors. Heating, ventilating chambers, kitchen block and laundry facilities were located in the buildings behind the administration block.

The railings, gateposts and gatepiers along Clepington Road date from the site's opening in 1889. The original gates to the vehicle entrances have been removed, as well as the original gas lamps on top of the stone gatepiers (only the cast iron bases remain). The north gatelodge was added to the main entrance in 1894 (as shown on the Dundee Town Plan of 1894). A mono-pitched entrance extension was added to its south elevation sometime between 1921 and 1937 (it is first shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1937).

The administration building was enlarged and extended to the west between 1900 and 1902 (as shown on the 2nd Edition Ordnance Survey map, revised 1900 and the Dundee Town Plans of 1902). The Town Plans show the east gatelodge (the former ambulance station) was built between 1901 and 1902. By 1900, King's Cross Hospital had a total of five interconnected, stone-built ward pavilions. The annual Dundee Town Plans show a sixth ward pavilion (a diphtheria ward) was added in 1909 and a seventh building, a two-storey and attic, rectangular-plan building that was probably built as nurses' accommodation, in around 1913, roughly the same time as a two-storey pavilion (used to treat measles and tuberculosis) was added in the southern section of the hospital grounds.

The Ordnance Survey maps of 1921, 1937, 1953 and 1971 show the hospital expanded in size throughout the later 20th century. Extensions were added and buildings altered as the needs of the hospital changed throughout the 20th century reflecting the advancement of medical knowledge and treatment of infectious disease. A new permanent isolation unit was built in 1964 in the southern section of the hospital grounds (now King's Cross Health & Community Care Centre). This building remains in use today (2024). The earlier fever hospital buildings are now largely used as offices.