Building record 0581501000 - ROYAL BUCKS HOSPITAL

Dimensions - Length 68m, Width 13m.
Foundation stone of new infirmary laid April 1861; opened June 1862. Comprises central portion (of 4 stories) & 2 wings (of 2 stories). Built to rear of former infirmary (00:000). Sanitorium at rear. Doric style; architect: David Brandon (Illus)(B2-3).
Press cuttings re opening of hospital &C (B4).
At NGR (B6).
The new hospital was built under the guidance of Florence Nightingale acting through her brother-in-law, Sir Henry Verney, then President of the management committee. A further floor was added to the eastern wing in the 1930s (B8-9).
Watching brief carried out in March 1996 to rear of main building, in an area recently occupied by ancillary buildings, concluded that the original ground surface had been severely truncated by extensive earlier terracing (B10).
Grade II. Hospital, currently unoccupied. C.1860-62 by David Brandon; planform influenced personally by Florence Nightingale. Rear addition wing opened 1908 (by F Taylor architect), other later C20 alterations. Red brick with stone floor and sill bands, quoins to central block, architraves and cornice. Slated roofs, with dormers and tall chimney stacks to central block; ventilators to left hand pavilion. Central 5 window administrative block of 3 storeys, attic and basement flanked by 2 storey and basement pavilion wards of 7 windows each with projecting end bays. Right hand pavilion with mid C20 3rd storey. Central entrance with stone portico of paired columns and pillars, with rectangular bands, carrying a dentil entablature supporting a balcony, with inset panels and ball finials, to pedimented 1st floor window having a central colonette. Ground floor sashes have segmental arched architraves with keystones, projecting bays with round-arched niches having quoins at angles; 1st floor architraved sashes with cornices on short pilaster supports with enriched corbels. Bracketed cornice to lefy hand pavilion. Central block 3rd floor sashes architraved; cornice with saw-tooth frieze, supports a brick parapet with central carved stone segmental pediment depicting the Bucks coat of arms and inscribed 'Anno Domini MDCCCLXI'. Originally called the Buckinghamshire General Infirmary, this hospital was one of the first pavilion plan hospitals in England and the first civil pavilion planned hospital to be finished and in use. Florence Nightingale was personally involved in the design which she published in the third edition of her 'Notes on Hospital Design', 1863 as an exemplar. The building is listed primarily for its significance in the development of mid-C19 hospital planning; the later C20 alterations are not of interest (B11).
Influence as model for 19th century single block pavillion plan hospitals (B12).
Buildings report dated April 1992 held at NMR (B14)