The Hospital for the Sick Poor in Ladbroke Grove was designed by the architects H. Saxon Snell & Sons, and opened in 1881. It was designed to serve the whole parish of Marylebone. Saxon Snell (1831-1904) was a noted architect of such facilities. The text accompanying the plan in Snell's book is as follows (with cross-referenced page numbers omitted):
St. Marylebone Infirmary
HIS Royal Highness The Prince of Wales has graciously intimated his intention of opening this building during the course of the present month. The foundation stone was laid July 7th 1879 by Edmund Boulnois, Esq., M.A., J. P., Chairman of the St. Marylebone Board of Guardians. Accommodation is provided in this establishment for 744 Sick Poor of the Parish of St. Marylebone, and is, undoubtedly, the most complete establishment of its kind.
The area of the site is nearly three and a quarter acres, and the fall of the ground, like that of the Holborn Union Infirmary, being very rapid from East to West, it results that what is ground floor at one end becomes the first floor at the other; and, unless this is borne in mind, it may be somewhat difficult to understand the plans.
It is very much to be regretted that the windows of the Wards were not on the conbined lifting sash and casement principle.... Each large Ward is heated by two double thermhydric open fire grates ..., and these are found sufficient without the additional aid of hot-water pipes heated from a separate furnace. The w.c.'s, Bath Rooms, &c., at the ends of the Wards are constructed in accordance with the detailed drawings illustrated....
The Water for this Establishment is supplied bv an Artesian Well, and the upper part of the Tower contains Cisterns for the storage of from two to three days' supply. This Tower also forms the chimney shaft for conveying away the smoke from the furnaces of the steam boilers, cooking apparatus, &c.
It will be observed that the Wash-house and Laundry are situated in the upper floors of the buildings at the rear of the Administrative Offices, a very desirable arrangement where, as in this instance, the area of the ground is insufficient and its shape such as to prevent the placing of these Offices on the ground floor and at a proper distance from the windows of the Sick Wards.
The building generally contains the following accommodation, viz.: —
Click on Snell's specifications, which include the areas of the rooms listed, to see a larger image. Many points of interest can be found in them, from the wine cellars for the Medical Officers to the "moveable Baths on wheels for use when required at the bedsides of patients," the Laundresses' Living Room, the Inmates' Clothing Store (almost as large in area as the Officers' Recreation Room), the hydraulic lift, "dust hole," and the concern with fire-proofing. This was a massive live-in establishment not only for the sick poor but for their carers, and for maintenance staff too.
The building, which is Grade II listed, is still in use today as a hospital. It was listed as "a fine example of a workhouse infirmary, the first hospitals paid for out of public funds following the Metropolitan Poor Law Act of 1867 permitting their erection in London." The listing text notes that it was designed on the "Nightingale" plan and includes a "central administration block and kitchens ... flanked each side by two three-storey blocks of two seven-bay wards per floor ... linked by spinal corridor and two-storey iron walkways at either end" and draws attention to its decorative elements, such as the "ventilating towers with chequered brickwork and pyramidal roofs with tiny louvres set in timber dormers." It adds that these elements are "repeated with even more gusto in the prominent central water-tower," and concludes that "[i]t is a skilled design using simple details and materials." Of course, there have been many modifications and improvements for present-day use. The central water tower no longer has its top stage, for example. But the building is evidently fundamentally as Snell envisaged it, and still used for its original purpose, even if for a new range of patients in a new community.
Recent colour photograph by Danny P. Robinson originally posted on the Geograph website, and kindly made available for non-commercial reuse under the terms of the Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA 2.0) licence, and cropped for use here. You may use the other image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the Internet Archive and The University of Michigan Library and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.
Bibliography
"Henry Saxon Snell." The Workhouse: The Story of an Institution. Web. 23 January 2025.
"St Charles' Hospital, Exmoor Street." Historic England. Web. 23 January 2025.
"St Charles Hospital, Exmoor Street, W10." Geograph. Web. 23 January 2025.
Snell, H. Saxon. Charitable and parochial establishments. Batsford: London, 1881. Internet Archive, from a copy in Robarts Library, University of Toronto. Web. 23 January 2025.
Created 23 January 2025