Description

David Bryce, 1872-9. Symmetrical 3-storey and attic Scots Baronial hospital with 4 pavilions projecting to N and 2 to S; later alterations and additions. Pale coursed bull-faced Hailes sandstone with ashlar dressings. Tall Franco-Scots-inspired turreted square central entrance tower and lucarned spire with decorative flashings, flanked by tall corniced ashlar chimney stacks; corner bartizans with projecting water-spouts and clock faces to N and S; inscription panels and commemorative date stone (1729-1870) over door (see Notes). Finialled and lucarned fish-scale slated conical roofs to circular corner towers (possibly derived from those at Falkland Palace) of pavilions (now linked by glazed balconies), with crowstepped gables between.

N (LAURISTON PLACE) ELEVATION: advanced asymmetrical centre block; 2-leaf glazed timber door with 2-pane fanlight in angled, moulded surround with carved panel above (see Notes); flanked by narrow hoodmoulded stone-transomed windows, with inscribed panels above (see Notes). Tripartite hoodmoulded stone-mullioned and -transomed window with date panel (see Notes) to 1st floor; tall tripartite round-arched stone-mullioned and -transomed window to 3rd; machicolation below clock face; gabletted buttress to left below turret; corbelling at 1st floor to circular turret with arrow-slit windows to right; lucarned ventilators and decorative cast-iron cresting to roof; weathervane on spire. Stone-mullioned and -transomed 2-light windows to ground, 1st and breaking eaves with pedimented dormerheads in 3 flanking bays; finialled, conical-roofed bartizans to outer corners. Recessed 2-bay linking blocks with large stone-mullioned and -transomed, shoulder-arched windows at ground, 1st, and 2nd floors, tripartite windows above.

S ELEVATION: much obscured by later additions.

E AND W ELEVATIONS OF PAVILIONS: 2-bay gabled blocks with intervening single bays, regularly fenestrated. Crowstepped gables to innermost and outermost elevations; bartizans to innermost block at angle of southern 2 bays.

INTERIOR: framed boards with gilt lettering in entrance hall, corridor and stair (see Notes). Board-room has good original plasterwork and joinery - doors, panelling, shutters etc.

Tall windows to wards, top hopper above, some sash and case below (see Notes). Cast-iron down pipes with some decorative hoppers. Stone skews. Grey slates.

Statement of Interest

A group comprises Lodge (with gatepiers and railings), Main Block, Medical Pavilions (including Jubilee Pavilion), former Nurses' Home, former Ear, Nose and Throat and Ophthalmic Blocks and Chalmers Hospital. Founded in 1729, the Royal Infirmary was Scotland's first hospital specifically intended for the care of the sick. Initially it was housed in an old building at the head of Robertson's Close, in what is now Infirmary Street (commemorated in a plaque on the wall of James Thin's Bookshop), then in a much larger building, designed by William Adam (foundation stone laid 1738, opened in 1741) and located between what are now Infirmary Street and Drummond Street. The hospital was granted a Royal Charter by George II in 1736. The King's statue (separately listed) can be seen to the right, outside the main entrance. The earliest building on the present site was George Watson's Hospital (1738-41), also designed by William Adam, fragments of which are incorporated into the building by John Lessels (separately listed) situated to the S of the main block. This building and its grounds were sold by the Merchant Company to the Corporation of the Royal Infirmary in 1870. The new Medical School, designed by Rowand Anderson, was also building on the adjacent site at the same time. The foundation stone of the Infirmary (a plaque indicates that this was at the corner of the NE pavilion) was laid by the Prince of Wales in 1870, and it was opened in November 1879. In its planning it shows the influence of the continental pavilion-plan hospitals advocated by Florence Nightingale, and of St Thomas's Hospital, London (designed by Henry Currey, a pupil of Decimus Burton, and built in 1868-71). The Illustrated London News acknowledges Bryce's infirmary (completed, after Bryce's death in 1876, under the supervision of his nephew, John Bryce) as 'the largest hospital in the United Kingdom, and probably the best planned.' Florence Nightingale's principals of hospital planning were adopted, and her detailed approval obtained. Each ward was designed to be self-contained, with waiting room, nurses' room, physicians' room, kitchen, lavatories and bathrooms; lifts were provided for patients' beds and (separately) for stores. Administration, teaching rooms, theatres etc were in the main block. Window arrangements for wards, with top hoppers over sash and case windows (to permit ventilation even in bad weather), remained popular for hospitals well into the 20th century. The ventilation system was also regarded innovative. The Infirmary cost ?340,000, and was intended to serve 550-600 patients. The furnishing of each ward cost ?400-?480, and the funding was raised by voluntary effort. Boards in the hall, corridors and staircase of the main block commemorate the donors both to this hospital and to the previous one (the Infirmary was dependent on charitable donations until 1948). Important portraits hang in the Board Room. The inscriptions over the door of the main block (PATET OMNIBUS, with a pelican, above the door, I WAS A STRANGER AND YE TOOK ME IN to the left, and I WAS SICK AND YE VISITED ME to the right) were copied in 1885 from those at William Adam's Infirmary.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17569511

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.

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