Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 2 June 2025 to amend the language in the description

TQ2685NW
798-1/26/1192

CAMDEN
CAMDEN
NEW END
Infirmary block and linking corridors at former New End Hospital

GV
II

Hampstead parish workhouse infirmary block. 1869-1871, extended in similar style 1878; all designed by John Giles of Messrs Giles & Bevan. Converted for residential use 1996-1998, John Thompson Associates, architects. Yellow stock brick with brick bands at floor levels. Hipped, low pitched slated roof. Four storeys and basement. A long, single depth range with attached tower to the south end and linking corridors to the north. Segmental brick arches with stuccoed keystones to recessed sashes. Tower has cast-iron balcony to top floor. Linking corridors formed on a cast-iron frame of Tuscan columns, each floor corridor of separate timber construction and continuously glazed with six-pane sliding sashes.

INTERIORS: plain and functional.

HISTORICAL NOTE: following a damning report on the state of workhouses in The Lancet of July 1865 the Metropolitan Poor Act of 1867 insisted on the provision of separate accommodation for poor relief and medical provisions of the Poor Law. A visit by the inspecting Medical Officer to Hampstead in July 1868 had found the available accommodation totally inadequate with some male paupers sleeping in straw in an open shed. Steps to provide further accommodation were immediately put in hand, that at Hampstead one of the first and oldest surviving: the infirmary also housed a separation ward and a lying-in ward. It was designed in response to Florence Nightingale's reforms in nursing and hospital design giving high, light wards which were narrow enough to allow cross-ventilation. The former infirmary block forms a linked group with the New End Hospital former Workhouse Block (qv), the Circular Ward & attached Water Tower (qv), and the Boilerhouse Chimney (qv).

It has exceptional townscape value.

Listing NGR: TQ2643185961

External Links

• Wikidata Q27084339

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

• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  ENGLAND GUIDE TO POST WAR LISTED: A Guide to Post-war Listed Buildings
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings