Reasons for Designation
St Helen's Hospital Supply Depot is the remaining part of a "square" plan workhouse designed by Sampson Kempthorne in 1835 and as one which followed the model most closely and which is best preserved should remain listed.
Details
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757/2/361
ORE
SPECKLED WOOD
Nos 1-9
(Formerly listed as: FREDERICK ROAD, ORE, FORMER ST HELENS HOSPITAL SUPPLIES DEPOT BUILDING, previously listed as: FREDERICK ROAD, ORE, ST HELENS HOSPITAL SUPPLIES DEPOT BUILDING)
14-SEP-76
II
Part of a workhouse, designed by Sampson Kempthorne in 1835, but working plans probably drawn up by his agent Annesley Voysey. Later converted into a hospital, and nine residential units in 2010.
MATERIALS: built of brick in English bond with stucco to the ground floor of the entrance block, slate roofs and sash windows. The original windows were twelve-pane sashes but most have been replaced within original openings by sashes with vertical glazing bars or without glazing bars.
EXTERIOR: the former entrance block has a low-pitched hipped roof with wide eaves and an end chimneystack. There are three storeys and a 1:3:1 window arrangement, the central three bays project slightly. The windows have flat brick arches and sill bands. The second-floor windows are blind. The ground floor has a wide central doorway with rectangular fanlight and cornice on console brackets. Contemporary three-storey wings are attached to north and west and to the south west is a two-storey range.
HISTORY: ten 'square' plan workhouses were known to have been designed by Sampson Kempthorne between 1835 and 1837 of which Hastings and Eton followed the model most completely, but Eton is thought to survive only in fragmentary form. Square plan workhouses generally had four ranges arranged as a square, and central ranges arranged in a cruciform plan. The original extent of the 1830s building is shown on the 1872 Ordnance Survey map.
About half of the three-storey cruciform parts survive and less than an eighth of the two-storey square ranges. These comprise the south entrance block, which had a waiting room on the ground floor and a board room above, the south wing which included the boys and girls school, dining room and women's infirmary, the central octagonal structure which had the master's parlour on the ground floor and master's bedroom above, the western wing which comprised the women's day rooms on the ground floor with women's infirmary and bedrooms above, and the south-west two-storey workroom and washing room.
SOURCES:
K Morrison, The Workhouse, RCHME publication (1999) pp 60,61,119,136,211,222 and 223.
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION:
1-9 Speckled Wood, Hastings, formerly part of an early C19 workhouse, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Historic interest: the surviving ranges formed part of one of ten square plan workhouses built by Kempthorne, whose square plan model became commonly adopted after 1835 and proved capable of endless variation.
* Architectural interest: although now subdivided, the building retains the austere character of its elevations, which are executed in the simple classical style that was popularly used in workhouses of the period.
