Lexden & Winstree Union Workhouses Traditional Cache
Lexden & Winstree Union Workhouses
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Lexton and Winstree Union Workhouse
Lexden and Winstree Union Workhouse was built in 1836 at a cost of £6,800 and could accommodate 330 inmates. The architects were S O Foden and Henman. The design was an unusual variation on Sampson Kempthorne's 'square' plan model. It comprised four main accommodation ranges emanating from an octagonal supervisory hub, which were contained within an octagon of single-storey outbuildings rather than a square (as in Kempthorne's model). The building was built of red brick with slate roofs. The hub and accommodation ranges were three storeys high, the entrance block, in the centre of the north side, was two storeys and the peripheral octagon was made up of single storey buildings. The entrance block would have contained a porter's room, waiting room, board room and clerk's office. The facade was five bays long with the central three set forward from the outer bays. It had a central porch with a shallow pedimental parapet and Tuscan pilasters, a stone plinth, a first floor plat band, wide bracketed eaves and tall sash windows. A passageway led to the central hub of the workhouse where the Master's quarters were located. This was designed to provide a view across each of the exercise yards, which were used by different categories of inmate (e.g. male/female, able-bodied/infirm). During the 1840s and 1850s a two-storey infirmary was erected, to the south of the main building. A new ward block was added to either side of the old infirmary after 1870. There was also a plain, gothic-style chapel added to the south in the 1870s or 1880s. There was a laundry to the south west and a mortuary to the east of the site, both probably dating from the early twentieth century. An outbuilding to the north east was of unknown use. The workhouse later became St Albright's Hospital, perhaps following the Local Government Act in 1929. It was most recently used as office accommodation. All the buildings survive (2007) and are Grade II listed. The site is now a housing estate, however all original buildings remain intact.
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Zntargvp Anab
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