Cardiff Royal Infirmary (including forecourt wall and gatepiers)

Cardiff Royal Infirmary

The Cardiff Royal Infirmary is a hospital complex in the free Gothic style. The earlier parts are built in snecked stone in pink, buff and white with bands of pink Radyr stone and bathstone, while later parts use rubble in similar colours and buff brick, mostly with slate roofs.

The main administration block faces Glossop Road. Set back from the centre of the facade stands a tower with two enriched upper stages. The lower stage has cusped Gothic windows and turrets, while the polygonal upper stage features narrow windows and gargoyles beneath a steep slate roof with pinnacles. The seven-bay front displays enriched stonework with heraldic shields, panelling and decorative heads to gables, with mainly mullion and transom windows throughout. A central advanced three-storey gabled bay rises to an apex marked with a dragon in sunburst. The top floor has a four-cusped light Gothic window, the first floor contains a pair of Gothic windows with mullions and transoms, and heraldic shields appear in the heads. The ground floor has steps leading up to a buttressed Gothic doorway with restored lanterns on each side. The flanking bays are two-and-a-half storeys with hipped and gabled timber dormers. Projecting blocks at the ends have gables and canted bays facing inwards. To the rear, half-timbered upper walls rise above elaborate red-and-yellow brick chimneys.

A low forecourt wall in front of the main entrance has bands of rubble and Radyr stone copings. White stone gate piers support a cast iron segmental arch bearing the lettering "Cardiff Royal Infirmary" and the Royal Arms.

At the corner with Longcross Street to the south, the outpatients' department rises four storeys. Its Glossop Road elevation has a castellated parapet with a tabernacle containing a statue and Gothic windows grouped 2-1-2. The Longcross Street elevation is simpler, with a plain parapet and square-headed windows. The entrance sits under a gable with two Gothic archways on octagonal shafts, flanked by buttresses.

Beyond this in Longcross Street stand two three-storey ward blocks with traceried upper floor windows. The unaltered canted south ends bear the dates 1916 and 1918, though the sides and roofs have been subject to inappropriate extensions.

The Chapel sits at the north-west corner of Glossop Road with Newport Road, designed in the Decorated style. Its west end displays a four-light window over a porch with a three-light window. The south elevation has two-light windows above a passage aisle with a porch at its west end. The north elevation has a two-storey transeptal organ loft, a vestry with a polygonal stair tower in the angle, and a polygonal east end.

Facing Newport Road, the return of the administration block features a half-timbered upper storey with paired gables and elaborate red-and-yellow brick chimneys.

To the east, set back, stands the King Edward VII War Memorial Block, bearing dates 1914 and 1918. This five-storey structure has three bays with outer advanced bays featuring gables with heraldic shields and three-light Tudor top-floor windows. Below these are canted bay windows with panelled parapets at the sill level of the third floor. A balcony with an inscription bridges the recessed central bay of two windows, which has a mouchette parapet between the end gables. Further east is the former children's ward of three storeys, with a central stepped gable containing a statue in a niche. The end bays advance as turrets with crenelated parapets and pyramidal slate roofs, lit by three-light mullion and transom windows.

To the rear stands a five-storey research block. Adjacent is a two-storey block in red brick with a hipped slate roof. Further east rises the Bruce Vaughan Block in a more elaborate Late Gothic style. This two-storey building features at its centre a broad canted bay window with cusped lights to the upper floor and relief decoration of putti holding inscriptions between floors. Above the window sits a stepped gable with a tabernacle enclosing a sculpture of the Good Samaritan, flanked by empty tabernacles. Deeper Gothic-arched links connect to turrets with crenelated parapets and pyramidal slate roofs.

The interior has been largely modernised, but the chapel retains significant features. It comprises a five-bay nave with a low south passage aisle, a shafted chancel arch with a polygonal apse to the chancel, and an elaborate painted roof over the chancel. High-quality furnishings include an octagonal pulpit and choir stalls with angels. The west window features stained glass depicting Christ on the Sea of Galilee, designed by Safton in 1956.

Within the body of the hospital is a handsome Art Nouveau staircase to the east of the spinal corridor featuring tiled panels by Maws depicting children's stories and nursery rhymes, painted by W B Simpson of London. Three further panels, including one of Dick Whittington, are in the orthopaedics department waiting room. A series of memorial plaques runs chiefly through the spinal corridor, including two bronze portrait reliefs by Goscombe John (circa 1914 and 1927) and tablets recording donors. A further donor tablet sits at the top of the stairs of the Bruce Vaughan Wing. Near the old operating theatre at upper level stands a polychrome tablet with a figure of St George, in memory of W H Seager, killed in 1916.