Description

SU 94NE GUILDFORD FARNHAM ROAD
(North Side)

3/48 Farnham Road Hospital
(Formerly The Royal
Surrey County Hospital)

GV II

Hospital. Foundation stone laid 3rd July 1863, opened 27th April 1866 with Neo-
Georgian porch added in early C20. Designed by Edward Lower with advice from
Florence Nightingale. Coursed sandstone blocks with brick dressings and angle
quoins, plain tiled roofs, hipped over pavilions and lantern. Rectangular plan
with extensions to rear, symmetrical front range around a central pavilion flanked
by 5-bay wings with smaller pavilions projecting and further 3 bay wings to ends.
Three storeys and attics in central pavilion, two storeys and attics in flanking
wings and pavilions, basement storey in right hand end wing. Wooden lantern on
lead-covered plinth to ridge of centre pavilion under swept pyramidal roof with
bracketed eaves, gablets and crowned by scrolled-iron weathervane. Doric
pilasters at angles flank two round-arched and keystoned openings on each face.
Clock face in front face of supporting plinth. Plinth across elevation with
diagonal brick dentil string course over ground floor, sill band across second
floor and broad plat band to eaves. Three-bay central pavilion with 1 bay return
walls. Glazing-bar sash fenestration. Three gauged-brick, segmentally-headed 12-
pane windows on the second floor with keystones above and in brick surrounds,
three similar, but taller, 18-pane windows below on the first floor. Two windows
on the ground floor, one either side of a flat-roofed portico under a stone-coped
brick panelled parapet, the centre panel of stone. Outer brick piers on pedestal
plinths flank to thin Doric columns in antis with railings across between them.
One bay links to wings set back either side of central pavilion, each with large
gabled half-dormer over attic sash window and with keystoned segmental heads to
single sashes on first and ground floors. Five bay wings either side set back
again each with small louvred gablets in roofs. Tall 18-pane glazing-bar sash
windows on the first floor under gauged-brick keystoned heads breaking up into
eaves band, stone sills below breaking into sill band. Tripartite glazing-bar
sash windows on ground floor alternating with single 12-pane,segmentally-headed
sashes; one tripartite window blocked in right hand wing and one C20 casement
added to right of centre. Projecting pavilions to ends of wings under steeply-
pitched roofs with one brick-dressed glazed panel in each face under the eaves.
Two tall and narrow 8-pane sash windows on the front of each pavilion on each
floor, 1 similar window on each floor of return sides. Further 3-bay wings to
ends, set back, with similar fenestration as main 5-bay wings although right hand
end wing has basement storey and five windows on the ground floor. Single-storey
flat-roofed extension to left end; C20 link building to rear at right angles
connecting to parallel range across the rear with further C20 extensions stepping
down to sides not of special interest. The original hospital building cost
£17,000 and was dedicated to the memory of Prince Albert; Queen Victoria became a
patron and donated 100 Guineas to the cost of construction.

MATTHEW ALEXANDER: GUILDFORD AS IT WAS (1978)
PEVSNER : BUILDINGS OF ENGLAND, SURREY (1971) p.280.

Listing NGR: SU9892249386

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Farnham Road Hospital at Wikipedia
• Farnham Road Hospital official website
• Wikidata Q16992079

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)