Description

SD 53 SW FULWOOD WATLING STREET ROAD

7/34 Preston District Health Authority Headquarters

II

Preston Union Workhouse (latterly known as the Civic Hostel) subsequently old people's home, now offices. 1865-68, by Leigh Hall of Bolton. Red brick with plinth and dressings of Longridge sandstone, slate roof with ridge chimneys. T-plan: main range c.150 metres long, on east-west axis, with 14-bay rear wing to the centre. Main range is 3 storeys with cellars, symmetrical, in Italianate style, composed of a 3-bay entrance block crowned with a clock tower, 14-bay ranges each side ending with 7-bay wing pavilions. The centre and wings break forward slightly, have rusticated quoins, moulded stone consoles supporting prominent cornices and low parapets, and their outer bays are marked by mansard roofs. Ridge chimney stacks. The entrance block, which carries in the centre a tall square clock tower with arched 2-light openings, clock faces above the cornice, and a 4-sided domed roof surmounted by decorative railings and a weathervane, has at ground floor a recessed central doorway flanked by set-in columns of polished granite, framed in a massive sandstone architrave with banded rustication at the sides and a deep entablature arched in the centre over a semi-circular tympanum displaying a wreath and ribbon lettered respectively "PP" and "PRESTON CIVIC HOSTEL"; 2 tripartite windows at ground floor and 3 on each floor above, all with stone architraves, and that over the door with a segmental pediment. The outer bays of the wings are treated in matching style; elsewhere the ground floor is treated as an arcade, all openings in round-headed recesses with keystones and linking impost bands, a door in the centre of each side range and wing, and the windows round-headed sashes with radiating glazing bars in the heads; the upper floors have stone sillbands, and sashed windows with glazing bars and gauged brick heads with keystones, except those in the centre of the wings which have stone architraves. Return walls of wings have round-headed windows, mostly blind, with imposts and keystones, and attached iron fire escapes; rear treatment is much plainer, but windows have gauged segmental heads. Rear wing is lower, the first 7 bays 2 storeys, the rest a 7-bay full height dining hall doubling as a chapel. History: building delayed 30 years after formation of Union, by local political opposition; foundation and opening both performed by Thomas Batty Addison, the leading Preston proponent of the New Poor Law since its inception; main object of architect was "to make the classification of the inmates as perfect as possible" (females to west, males to east, children of each sex in corresponding wing). Rear exercise yards, plunge baths, wash-houses for females (etc) subsequently demolished. Cost estimated as £30,000 exceeded £50,000: local ratepayers critical of architectural extravagance. Reference: Anthony Hewitson History of Preston 1883; Preston Guardian 2.1.1868.

Listing NGR: SD5397731648

External Links

• Wikidata Q26333232

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