Description

LANCASTER

SD4761SE ASHTON ROAD
1685-1/8/12 (West side)
Royal Lancaster Infirmary (original
building)

GV II

Hospital. 1896, altered and extended 1929. Designed by Paley
and Austin. Sandstone ashlar with slate roofs. Free
Renaissance style. Originally a reversed L-shaped plan
arranged symmetrically around an octagonal 4-stage entrance
tower, and altered by the construction of a long extension on
the left.
Above the entrance doorway is a square niche framed with
strapwork and filled with a Coade stone plaque, representing
the Good Samaritan. This was previously placed above the
entrance of the dispensaries at No.19 Castle Hill (qv) and
No.6 Thurnham Street (qv). The upper faces of the tower above
the doorway are blind, but on the third floor an aedicule
contains the royal coat of arms. On either side of the
entrance the faces of the tower are canted backwards and have
a rectangular window on the ground and first floors. All the
windows have quadrant-moulded architraves and a keystone and
are sashed with glazing bars. On the second floor is a bull's
eye window, and on the third a round-headed window; above is a
balustrade which hides the base of an ogee-shaped dome.
To the right of the tower is the 2-bay return wall of the
right-hand original block, which has 2 storeys, plus gabled
attics, and 5 wide bays arranged as a recessed centre and 2
cross-wings. These have paired windows on the ground and first
floors and a stepped 3-light window under a Flemish gable. The
central bay has a similar gable and paired windows on the
first floor, but the ground floor has a canted bay window. To
the far right is a single-storey wing containing an entrance
with a battlemented lintel and a datestone, all set under a
Flemish gable, which has a bull's eye window.

Listing NGR: SD4774761198

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q99662701

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

• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)