Randolph Wemyss Memorial Hospital, Wellesley Road, Methil

Randolph Wemyss Memorial Hospital, Wellesley Road, Methil

Designed by Alexander Tod in 1908 with a western extension by John Holt in 1965, this single-storey hospital with attic storey is a seven-bay building in the Scots Renaissance style. It is finished in white harl with red sandstone ashlar dressings, and features a base course and mutuled cornice with blocking course treated as parapet. Most openings are unmargined with round-headed doors and windows, and the building is decorated with corbels and stone mullions throughout.

The principal south-east elevation is symmetrical, with deeply recessed centre bays forming a courtyard and advanced outer gables. At the centre stands a red sandstone Doric-columned portico bearing the Wemyss coat-of-arms on a mutuled pediment. The round-headed doorway contains a two-leaf panelled timber door with decoratively-astragalled fanlight and flanking narrow lights. Above rises a circular tower with three round-headed windows, a mutuled cornice and blocking course giving way to a conical roof with four gableted clock-faces and a swan weathervane. To the right of centre are three windows grouped 2-1, followed by a window and door beyond. Each bay is topped by a small stone dormer window with large floreate sandstone finials, initialled 'I' and 'W' to the left and right respectively, with a ridge stack dividing the bays.

The advanced gable to the outer right features two windows on its left return and a bracketed four-light window that rises into three sculptured panels. The centre panel depicts a swan flanked by the figures '19' and '08', with a thistle finial above between two small windows, and a grouped gablehead stack appearing as a belfry. A full-height conically-roofed round tower with arrow slits is positioned at the right angle, with a bartizan corbelled out over the ground floor at the left angle. The bays to the left of centre mirror this arrangement, with carved stones on the advanced gable reading 'RG', a lion rampant, and 'EW', and dormer finials initialled 'E' and 'S'.

The north-east elevation contains two bays to the left of centre, each with a narrow window and bipartite dormer window, and a round tower to the outer left. A small advanced pavilion to the right features a bipartite window and a diminutive timber fleche, with further bipartite and single windows on its left return.

The south-west elevation shows two narrow windows and a round tower to the outer right, with a flat-roofed link to the extension projecting to the outer left.

The north-west rear elevation is asymmetrical, featuring a small piended bay with three windows to the centre, flanked by modern flat-roofed extensions and extending to linked ancillary buildings beyond to the right.

Windows throughout are timber sash and case with 4-, 8- and 10-pane glazing patterns, most lights two panes wide. The roof is finished in graded grey slates with terracotta ridge tiles. Stacks are coped ashlar, skews are stepped ashlar-coped, and cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers are present.

The interior contains a circular entrance hall with round-headed doors and decoratively-astragalled fanlights to each direction, similarly-detailed windows between, and decorative cornice and ceiling detail. The floor is covered with a swan over the Wemyss motto 'Je Pense', and a painted frieze decorates the walls.

The mortuary is a separate rectangular-plan building finished in harl with a cross-finial and crowstepped gables. All openings are round-headed. The south-east elevation has a boarded timber door to the right of centre and a small bipartite window to the outer right, with a raised centre tripartite window to the left. The south-west elevation contains a door to the centre and a traceried roundel above.

The stack and ancillary buildings comprise a battered brick stack with a harled square-section plinth corbelled to a round second stage with mutuled cornice. Associated harled and slated ancillaries retain timber sash and case glazing, stacks, and decorative rainwater goods.

The boundary walls are harled with saddleback coping, and the square-section gatepiers are cavetto-coped.