Summary

A former military hospital. Work on the hospital commenced in June 1856 and it was opened in October 1857. Designed in Italianate style, the architect is not at present known but the foundations were dug by Messrs R I Carlisle and Co. of Bermondsey and the contractors for the superstructure were Kirk and Parry of Sleaford.

Late C20 additions to the rear do not contribute to special interest.

Description

This List entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 07/04/2017

A former military hospital. Work on the hospital commenced in June 1856 and it was opened in October1857. Designed in Italianate style, the architect is not at present known but the foundations were dug by Messrs R I Carlisle and Co. of Bermondsey and the contractors for the superstructure were Kirk and Parry of Sleaford. The four northern single-storey bays were demolished after the 1960s, internal refurbishing took place circa 1971 and an extension was added on the northern part of the south-east side circa 1985. Although integral to the structure, the later C20 additions are not of special interest.

MATERIALS: stock brick in Flemish bond, with stuccoed dressings to the principal front. The south-west and north-east ends are cement rendered with incised lines to imitate masonry. Gabled slate roof with four truncated brick chimneystacks, some retaining metal perforated plates of the circa 1863 improved ventilation system.

PLAN: a symmetrical building, originally of 25 bays, mainly of two storeys but with end single-storey wings. The five central bays are taller with a central entrance, flanked by less tall six-bay wings and there were four-bay single-storey end pavilions. Internally there are two staircases at the ends of the building and a full-length corridor to the rear of the building on each floor. There were 11 wards 20 feet wide and about 25 feet long with windows along one side, 8 of which were on the first floor, and a central day-room on the first floor. The ground floor contained an Isolation ward, Detention ward and Inspection ward, stores, ablution and bathrooms, surgery, medical officers and orderlies rooms and a kitchen. This plan was not altered when the building became the Senior Officers School in 1924 although many rooms acquired other functions. After the 1960s the northern single storey four bay section was demolished and after 1968 a few rooms were adjusted in size, were amalgamated or had later partitions inserted.

EXTERIOR: the principal north-east front is almost symmetrical and is now of 21 bays, the four single storey north bays having been demolished after the 1960s . The taller almost central projecting five bays have a stuccoed moulded parapet, string-course and plinth. The windows are six over six sash windows with narrow glazing bars. The first floor windows have moulded surrounds and under cill stops. The central window has an additional pediment. The ground floor windows have moulded surrounds with keystones and stops. The central stuccoed doorcase has a cornice and pilasters and is approached up four later C20 brick steps. There is a C20 glazed door. The flanking slightly lower wings of six bays have identical windows and dressings. The four bay single-storey south end also has identical windows and dressings. There are cast iron ventilation vents at the base of the walls.

The south-west end is cement rendered and has the gable end to the two storey wing with an oculus, a projecting porch with a cornice supported on square piers, originally serving the medical officer's quarters, and four six over six sash windows.

The south-east rear elevation is of plain brickwork with some rubbed red brick voussoirs. The centre projects with a two-storey gable with end chimneystack to the former day room over the kitchen flanked by a scullery and coal store. At the southern end the brickwork shows the shadow of an earlier lean-to extension. The northern half has a two storey circa 1985 stretcher bond brown brick extension.

The north-west end is mainly cement rendered and the eastern part has a pediment with an oculus and two first-floor later C20 paired sash windows on the first floor and a later C20 door below. The smaller adjoining western 1985 gable is partly of brown brick and partly cement rendered.

INTERIOR: the full length corridors along the ground and first floor on the north-west side retain the original straight flight staircases at the north and south ends which retain the original cast iron handrails and stick balusters heightened by additional later C20 sections of handrail and balusters. The corridors retain original plain skirting boards, wide chamfered door architraves and some window surrounds although the doors and window glazing are C20. Original water closets (refitted) beyond the staircases survive.

The central entrance hall and most rooms on the ground floor retain their original room divisions, plain door architraves and skirting boards. The two southern corridor window plain chamfered architraves are similar to the door architraves and different from those to the next two bays which seem to be secondary. Thereafter they appear to be later insertions. The former medical officer's quarters retains original domestic type door and window architraves, wooden shutters to the windows, an original half-glazed door and one room retains a wooden built-in cupboard with shelves.

The first floor mainly retains its original ward layout, although the northern two wards have had part of their connecting wall removed to make a larger space and a wall in the small central room, originally used as a pack store, has been removed. Rooms retain the original plain door architraves and skirting boards and the chimneybreasts show evidence of the blocked warm air vents installed after 1863. There is also evidence of blocked vents above the doors on the first floor corridor. The former day room has corbels at the top of the chimneybreast and a dumb waiter. Original water closets beyond the staircases survive, one appears to have been added, perhaps when accommodation for nursing staff was extended.

The roof space was not inspected but a sectional drawing of 1910 shows a wooden queen-post roof with angled struts and recent photographs (2016) were provided by Peel Ports.

Pursuant to s. 1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 ('the Act') it is declared that later C20 windows, doors and internal partitions and suspended ceilings are not of special architectural or historic interest.

History

An artillery fort was established built at the tip of the Sheerness headland in 1545, Sheerness Dockyard was established in 1665 and there was an army garrison separate from the dockyard from the time of the 1667 Dutch raid on the Medway to the mid C20.
This former garrison hospital was built in 1856-7 to replace earlier hospitals that had served the late C18 Fort Townsend. These comprised an 1807 hospital situated between bastions 1 and 2, probably removed when the fortifications were improved to provide the ravelin and a building later in use as a guardhouse, but shown on an 1860 plan still labelled as a hospital, which was probably the replacement to the 1807 hospital and the predecessor to the 1856 purpose-built military hospital.

The new hospital was built to serve the Sheerness army garrison and was built within the late C18 Bastion no. 2 of Fort Townsend because a building set apart was needed to separate sick and possibly contagious soldiers from their healthy comrades. The foundations were commenced before March 1856 and the hospital was opened in October 1857. The exterior was designed in Italianate style with a symmetrical principal front of 25 bays. The architect is not at present known but the foundations were dug by Messrs R I Carlisle and Co. of Bermondsey and the contractors for the main structure were Kirk and Parry of Sleaford.

It was one of a few military hospitals built during or just after the Crimean War, which included the Royal Victoria Hospital at Netley (1856-63), a military hospital at the Peninsular Barracks, Winchester (1856) and Shoeburyness Barracks Hospital (1856). At this date the pavilion plan with cross-lit 'Nightingale' wards was still being worked out and the former military hospital at Sheerness was designed to the earlier plan of small wards opening off a corridor on one side and a ventilation tube system. It pre-dated the 1857 report by the Sanitary Commission on the War in the East and the 1861 report under Herbert for improving the Sanitary condition of Barracks and Hospitals.

The 1863 report of the commission appointed for improving the sanitary condition of Barracks and Hospitals Improvement Commission reported in its Appendix covering Sheerness District that Sheerness Hospital had two staircases, 11 wards 20ft wide and about 25ft long with windows along one side, mainly situated on the first floor. There was a central day room on the first floor and on the ground floor were a number of rooms, chiefly stores, ablution and bathrooms, surgery, medical officers and orderlies rooms and a kitchen. Although the report praised the day room was critical of the existing ventilation tubes and stipulated that larger louvred ventilation shafts and inlets should additionally be inserted into the wards, the corridors should also be ventilated by shafts or by ventilating sky-lights, an ablution table with fixed sunk basins and hot and cold water should be provided and four beds should be removed from each ward because of overcrowding.

Historic photographs and plans show that when built the hospital also had a walled enclosure to the rear, bounded by the walls of no. 2 Bastion. This may have been provided to allow recovering patients to take fresh air without absconding, though 1910 plans show DPS (Drying Posts) indicating that by that date the walls had a laundry related function. The 1910 plans in the National Archives at Kew also show that within the walls there was also a rectangular structure, the very thick inner walls of which suggest that this was possibly a pre-existing magazine within no. 2 Bastion before the hospital was built. These features are no longer visible above ground although there may be buried remains. When built the hospital was close to the Commandant's House and the Royal Engineers Yard of Well Marsh Barracks but it is now the only surviving army barracks building surviving at Sheerness. An etching probably produced soon after it was opened (reproduced on Page 22 of Bluetown Remembered) shows the principal front of the hospital and a fence separating the building from the rest of Well Marsh.

The building appears on the 1906 Ordnance Survey map, but not on earlier editions for reasons of national security. 1910 plans survive showing the layout of the hospital at that time.

In 1924 the building became the Senior Officers' School, which re-located from Woking. On the 1933 Third Edition 25 inch sheet it is identified as the Senior Officers' School and the organisation left sheerness in 1939. A 1947 aerial plan of the hospital site shows the building externally unaltered and retaining its walled enclosure.

In 1968 Thames Steel acquired the building and surrounding land. Steel was produced on the site from 1972 and the former military hospital became the main office. Demolition of the four northern single-storey bays took place after the 1960s and these four bays are not shown on circa 1971 plans of proposed alterations. Works inlcuded the amalgamation of former wards on the first floor and the provision of some additional room partitions on the ground floor. Further proposals of circa 1985 included a new range to the north part of the rear elevation, which was built and some further room partitions. The plant closed in 2012.

The building is now in the ownership of Peel Ports and is mainly unoccupied at present (2016).

Reasons for Listing

The former Military Hospital at Sheerness, built 1856-7 in Italianate style is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: an impressive, well-articulated, and formerly symmetrical, principal front of two storeys and 21 bays, in the fashionable Italianate style;
* Planning interest: a corridor-plan hospital, built prior to the commissioning of pavilion plan hospitals, to serve increased demand during the Crimean War, showing adaptations made as a result of medical advances during the war and the findings of the 1863 Report;
* Degree of survival: the principal elevation and south-west pavilion survive well, and include the original windows and evidence of the ventilation system. The original internal corridor plan, with a day room, water closets, and staff accommodation, and 1860s adaptations to it, remain legible, along with surviving interior fittings and joinery which distinguish the hospital from the domestic quarters;
* Historic interest: a well-documented military hospital built to serve the garrison at Sheerness, where there has been an important naval and military presence since the C17 and where the hospital is the only surviving garrison building to represent its 250 year history in the town;
* Comparators: one of three surviving military hospitals built during the Crimean War, comparable with Winchester Barracks Hospital (Grade II) and built on a grander scale than Shoeburyness Garrison Hospital (Grade II);
* Group value: the hospital was built within the C18 No. 2 Bastion, and is adjacent to the Sheerness Defences, scheduled monument (NHLE 1005145). It also has proximal group value with the listed Naval Terrace and Dockyard Church within the former Royal Dockyard, which was the reason for the garrison's presence.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q66477731

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)
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  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  ENGLAND GUIDE TO POST WAR LISTED: A Guide to Post-war Listed Buildings
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  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
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  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
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  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair