Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB26/28/164

Address :
Gardner Robb building Belfast City Hospital 51 Lisburn Road Belfast BT9 7AB

Townland:
Malone Lower

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Survey 2:
B1

Date of Listing:
14/04/2026 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Hospital Building

Former Use
Hospital Building

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
147/1NW

IG Ref:
J3316 7308

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Owner Category

Health Board

Exterior Description And Setting

Detached symmetrical multi-bay three-storey, over partial basement [northern portion only] Tudor Gothic hospital building, formerly the Belfast Union Workhouse Fever Hospital, built 1845-47 to designs by Charles Lanyon; with further enlargement to designs by Charles Lanyon 1847-48; additional sanitation extensions added 1902-03 by Young and McKenzie. The building is arranged in a symmetrical linear H-shaped form; current entrance has central projecting gable fronted bay and flanked, at either end, with breakfront three-storey gabled blocks. Front elevation [East] has pitched natural slate roofs of large duchess slates with blue/black clay ridge tiles over corbelled stone eaves course, with projecting bays defined by raised smooth stone skews and kneelers on parapet walls. Central spine of building has double pile pitched slated roof with central, internal valley. Replacement moulded iron guttering to eaves and circular-profile iron downpipes. Walls are rock-faced squared and rubble stone basalt with chamfered stone plinth course and tooled ashlar quoins in scrabo stone. Majority of original square-headed window openings with replaced concrete heads, in lieu of original tooled ashlar. The blocked sandstone surrounds are retained below the concrete inserts with stone relieving arch in basalt still in place on most of the openings. Projecting end bays with one centrally placed window per floor, topped with Lancet style, Gothic pointed window with timber louvre inserted below apex of gable. Four window wide spacing arranged either side of central projection and typically having four pane division – single horizontal division top and bottom with single vertical division between. Original detailing of diamond pane cast iron windows now replaced with crittal within the timber framing, and latterly uPVC casements on ground and first floors. Central projecting bay with lead covered canted oriel bay window at first floor above which is centrally positioned a single, two pane window with dressed stone surround with Lancet style, Gothic pointed window with timber louvre grille insert. Fenestration arrangement centred above Tudor style tripartite door with slender side lights to ground floor entrance in the idiom of the Wilkinson framing of doorways. Typically, rear, West elevation as above with projecting gables only to North and South. Seven window wide spacing arranged equally across façade and framed with original mono pitched, two windows per floor projections to sides which in turn are framed with three floor, flat roof, red brick, sanitation blocks to the SW & NW, built circa 1901 to the designs of Young & McKenzie. Currently an arrangement of single storey contemporary prefab structures obscure the ground floor fenestration. The fenestration is varied, consisting of various materials and window styling all within enlarged openings with a mixture of stone and brick linings framing openings. Projections to rear with stylised brick framing and recessed window openings within the recessed plane. Elevations facing North and South with four windows, on all levels, either side of centrally placed projecting bay with two number squared headed windows located vertically on half level (internal stair landings) with Lancet style, Gothic pointed window opening above. Roof profile as before with pitched natural slate roofs, defined by raised, corbelled, smooth stone skews and kneelers on parapet walls with blue/black clay ridge tiles and moulded iron guttering to eaves and circular-profile iron downpipes. All original diamond pane windows replaced with white painted crittal in timber framing or latterly uPVC replacement. Window openings to north elevation have original stone lining to reveals with replacement of stone lintols over in concrete in all but a few openings. North elevation retains the stone steps with wrought iron balustrade giving access to ashlar dressed stone arched doorway. Basement level with red brick quoin surround to windows – several window openings infilled and finished with smooth concrete render. To left on North elevation a temporary, prefabricated mono pitched roof structure obscures original windows behind. South elevation as above with red brick quoins to window openings in lieu of stone. Openings retain original relieving arches in basalt stone. SETTING Set on a H-plan footprint, the operational entrance currently faces East within the shadow of the Tower block sitting within the modern City Hospital estate. The site is accessed from the wider hospital site via both Donegall Road and Lisburn Road. With the Northern elevation visible from the Donegall Road, on entering the wider site, the building sits behind a fenced secure yard with expansive tarmacadamed surfacing and storage facilities. From the Lisburn Road and the approach to the working hospital, the building is approached through a security barrier with extensive carparking and new low rise development of administrative accommodation. Portions of the original basalt boundary walling which enclosed the complex now form the boundary with the railway station. The railway expansion of the Belfast Central Railway line dramatically frames the approach by pedestrian footbridge when arriving by train. The axial relationship with the city to the North has thus been strengthened with the alignment of the pedestrian footbridge with the original northern entrance and the retention of the northern boundary walling in black basalt of the wider workhouse complex which separates the station from the hospital complex. EXTERNAL FINISHES Roof - Natural slate to all roof slopes including valleys of double pile roof RWG – Cast iron/profiled extruded aluminium. Walls - Basalt walling with dressed sandstone to openings on N&E elevations and brick around window openings on W&S Windows – crittal, uPVC casements, timber with concrete lintols and stone relieving arches framing window openings

Architects

Lanyon, Charles Young & Mackenzie Munce, James

Historical Information

Belfast Union Fever Hospital was designed by Charles Lanyon, as a supplementary building to the Belfast Union Workhouse, the initial construction phase taking place in1845-7. In 1847-8, the building was enlarged, completing Lanyon’s original design. The building continued as a Fever Hospital until 1948 and the establishment of the NHS, when it was converted into a maternity unit. The former Fever Hospital remains in use as a medical facility to this day. BELFAST UNION WORKHOUSE The Fever Hospital was constructed as an additional facility for the Belfast Union Workhouse. A network of workhouses was built across Ireland under the 1838 Irish Poor Relief Act which introduced statutory relief (food and shelter) for the destitute. The Poor Relief Act of 1838 provided for the establishment of Poor Law Unions, the building of workhouses and the creation of Boards of Guardians to run the Unions under the overall supervision of Poor Law Commissioners. Belfast Union Workhouse opened on 11th May 1841 for 1,000 inmates/paupers and was designed by George Wilkinson, architect to the Poor Law Commissioners and designer of the majority of workhouses across Ireland. Almost immediately, the Belfast workhouse was found to be lacking in important facilities and renowned architect, Charles Lanyon, was engaged to provide plans for two rooms for the ‘industrial training of children’ in April 1842. This marked the beginning of a process of expansion on the workhouse site that continued until the early 20th century and saw the Guardians acquiring additional land in 1872 and constructing several further significant institutional, educational and medical buildings on the workhouse site. Belfast Workhouse was equipped, as was standard for all workhouses, with a small Infirmary for a few patients but the provision was inadequate to cope with outbreaks of fever. Fever at this period, generally signified typhus, relapsing fever and typhoid, but infectious diseases such as smallpox and cholera also had a severe impact on the health of the poor during periodic epidemics. Workhouse inmates arriving with, or developing infectious diseases after their admission, beset the workhouse system almost from the outset, and the Guardians initially sent their infectious patients to the town Fever Hospital in Frederick Street. CONSTRUCTION OF FEVER HOSPITAL NETWORK IN IRELAND In Autumn/Winter 1843/4, little more than two years after the workhouse had opened, Belfast and other towns in Ireland, experienced a serious outbreak of typhus, and the town Fever Hospital in Frederick Street, being full up, was closed to new patients. In response to this outbreak, and with the support of the amended Poor Law Act of 1843, the Poor Law Commissioners encouraged Unions to build free-standing Fever Hospitals. Almost all the Unions in the north of Ireland responded by constructing a purpose-built fever hospital for between 25 and 100 patients on workhouse grounds between 1844 and 1849. The Commissioners recommended that a Fever Hospital should be ‘a plain building, two storeys high, with windows on each side for ventilation’. Designs to be used at workhouses throughout Ireland were commissioned in February 1844 from George Wilkinson, the Commissioners’ architect. Initially three designs were produced, for 24, 40 and 48 beds (plans and elevations survive, showing buildings of a plain character, the 40-bed version having a doorway with Tudor arch). By 1847, when famine fever was placing severe pressure on fever hospital accommodation, Wilkinson had drawn up further designs for larger hospitals that could accommodate 60 or 100 patients (plans for these larger hospitals do not survive). Although the Commissioners permitted Unions to choose their own architect, Wilkinson’s designs were used for the vast majority of workhouse fever hospitals. Charles Lanyon’s involvement with fever hospitals appears to have begun in 1844 when he was appointed ‘to superintend the building and prepare the specification’ of a fever hospital (now gone) at Larne workhouse for which Wilkinson had supplied the design. Lanyon was subsequently commissioned to design a fever hospital (not connected to a workhouse and now gone) at Portadown later in 1844 and these experiences were no doubt a useful preparation for his hospital design for the Belfast Union, which he designed in 1845-47. FAMINE FEVER AND THE OPENING OF BELFAST FEVER HOSPITAL In February 1845, Belfast Guardians invited tenders from contractors for building ‘large fever wards’ to the designs of Charles Lanyon at the Belfast Union Workhouse. The Belfast Guardians were among the few not to make use of the plans drawn up by Wilkinson because they intended to build a hospital with a capacity for at least 300 patients, several times larger than any of Wilkinson’s designs. Fever Hospitals were deliberately constructed as separate structures to workhouses, in order to reduce the risk of transmitting infection, and were usually also placed a short distance away from the main buildings. At Belfast, however, the constraints of the site and the size of the building meant that the hospital was located in fairly close proximity to the main workhouse buildings. Lanyon’s design (as can be seen from the finished building) effectively consists of two of Wilkinson’s hospitals constructed back-to-back. However, as befits a much more substantial building, the elevations, while they would have blended stylistically with the existing workhouse building, are more detailed than Wilkinson’s original designs and display additional decorative details, such as the oriel window to the front elevation. Internally the design echoes the Wilkinson Fever Hospital layout with two large wards either side of a central hallway in each of the wings. However, Lanyon’s design is three storeys in height (to the front elevation) and aerial photographs of 1923 show that the hospital was significantly taller than the other buildings on the workhouse site, despite the fact that many of these were also three storey. Wilkinson, who would have formally approved Lanyon’s designs as part of the Commissioners’ oversight, considered tall rooms essential for the ‘proper treatment’ of fever patients, the increased volume of air allowing for better ventilation which was thought to aid in healing patients and preventing disease transmission. The wards were therefore constructed to be at least 15 feet in height. Ventilating grilles were also fitted in roofs and walls, and these were connected with a high tower or chimney at the centre of the building. Lanyon, the celebrated architect of many of Belfast’s most characteristic buildings, was highly active in the 1840s, designing the Crumlin Road Gaol (1843-5) Ulster Institution for the Deaf and Dumb (1843-5), Queen’s College, later Queen’s University (1847-9) and Crumlin Road Court House (1848-50). As Surveyor for County Antrim during this period, he designed Queen’s Bridge (1840-43) and Glendun Viaduct (1837-39) and was appointed engineer to several railway companies. As architect to the Down and Connor Church Accommodation Society he also designed 14 Church of Ireland churches between 1839 and 1843. In 1847, following the opening of his Belfast Fever Hospital, Lanyon was approached to draw up plans for the Fever Hospital at Downpatrick Workhouse, Guardians specifying that he should design it ‘according to the principle on which the Belfast Hospital is constructed’. Downpatrick Workhouse Fever Hospital has now gone (the town hospital survives and is now listed HB18/19/017B) but was built on a sloping site and on a similar plan to the Belfast Hospital and was entered at one end (the likely original arrangement at Belfast). Belfast and Downpatrick are the only workhouse fever hospitals known to have been designed by Charles Lanyon and it is highly likely that Wilkinson was the designing architect of the remaining workhouse fever hospitals in what is now Northern Ireland. Belfast Fever Hospital was constructed in two separate phases. Initially, ‘just the one half of Mr Lanyon’s original design’, was built, most likely the northern half of the building, with the original entrance being located on the N elevation. This entrance would have allowed patients suffering from infectious diseases to enter the hospital from Blackstaff Lane (renamed Donegall Road in 1893) without passing close to the workhouse, but also later allowed for discreet access for private patients and discreet removal of deceased patients, the workhouse burial ground (SMR ANT061:027) being located further along the lane (a gate pier and some walling survives at the former Donegall Road entrance to the burial ground). Some stretches of boundary wall to the N of the former Fever Hospital have survived and appear to be among very few stretches of workhouse boundary wall to remain intact at the former workhouse site. The design of the N elevation has taken advantage of the slope of the ground to give an additional, basement storey at this end of the building and the window surrounds on this elevation are of stone, giving a greater formality in comparison to the S elevation where the majority of window surrounds are of brick. Early maps show a grand flight of steps leading to the doorway on this elevation, although this has since been altered (map evidence suggests that the steps were altered between 1931 and 1959, perhaps when the building was changed to a maternity unit. Some steps have been removed and/or replaced and handrails have also been bedded into a concrete base. However, the railings and some sandstone flags are historic in origin). A few months after work on the Fever Hospital had commenced in 1845 it became clear that the potato crop in Ireland had failed and a full-blown famine quickly developed among the poor, starvation also leading to the spread of disease (typhus and relapsing fever carried by infected lice) and a steady rise in the numbers of fever patients, eventually overwhelming the limited and temporary facilities at the workhouse. Dogged by delays, the new Fever Hospital finally opened on 16th January 1847 with accommodation initially for 140-150 patients. The ‘Banner of Ulster’ published a full description of the Fever Hospital building just before its opening, describing it as ‘plain, but not inelegant’ and commanding, due to its elevation ‘a fine view of the town, the Lough and surrounding country’. Some civic pride was expressed at the way ‘so much [sic] pains have been taken to render the various apartments in every way fitted to serve the purposes intended’. The ground floor contained the private apartments of the house surgeon, ‘handsomely furnished’, the kitchen, servants’ rooms and laboratory and wards for convalescent patients. On the first floor were the wards for male patients and the nurses’ rooms and on the second floor were the wards for women. Each ward could accommodate between ten and 15 patients and each patient had a ‘neat’ iron bedstead with a straw mattress and pillows, linen sheets, blankets and white coverlet. Tables between the beds carried spittoons and drinking jugs. A large bath supplied with hot and cold water was installed on each floor. By January 1847 the Guardians wished to ‘proceed with as little delay as possible’ in completing Lanyon’s original design, ‘in consequence of the great increase of disease in this Union’, the suffering and disease associated with famine then reaching a crescendo. The decision was made to enlarge the hospital in Feb 1847 and James Entwistle’s tender for £3,140 to complete the hospital was accepted in June 1847. Following delays in raising the necessary finance, works began in the second half of 1847. In the meantime, the existing Fever Hospital accommodation was stretched to bursting point with over 500 patients recorded in April. The hospital was expanded by adding an additional wing, most likely consisting of the additional ward block to the S with the rear return abutting onto the existing building. Patient capacity at the finished hospital was somewhat flexible and ranged from as few as 200 to as many as 600 depending on disease conditions at the time. Bed-sharing was also a common practice at times when accommodation came under pressure. Some modifications were made to the approved design, notably in January 1848, when permission was requested for Lanyon to substitute two doors for windows in the back part of the new building to enable him to divide the hospital into separate departments for fever, dysentery and smallpox, without patients having to come into contact with one another. In April 1848, the new fever wards were reported by Lanyon and the Fever Hospital physician, Dr Seaton Reid, to be ready for occupation, but by this time fever was subsiding. The famine-related fever epidemic had lasted two years from 1846-1848 and 13,468 cases had been treated of whom 1,758 had died. THE FEVER HOSPITAL AFTER THE FAMINE Following the famine, a new epidemic was just around the corner and cholera patients began to appear in late 1848. The Fever Hospital was soon dealing with Belfast’s second major cholera outbreak of the 19th century, (the first having occurred in 1832/3). The death toll would eventually reach 1,156 in Belfast alone. Cholera was to return to Belfast in 1854, with 677 deaths and for the last time in 1866 with 15 deaths officially returned. Belfast also continued to be periodically affected by significant outbreaks of typhus, smallpox and typhoid, the Fever Hospital playing a key role in treating patients. Dr Seaton Reid requested permission in 1863 to make some slight alterations that would improve the ventilation in the Fever Hospital as ‘there is evidence of some of my wards becoming foul’. The issue of ventilation continued to be a concern over the following years and in 1879 a central ‘ventilating tower’ was added to the hospital which is visible on an image dating from c1900 and in aerial photos of 1923 but had been removed by 1953, most likely as part of alterations carried out when the building became a maternity unit. In 1891/2, the Fever Hospital wards were altered to designs by Young & Mackenzie in order to provide suitable accommodation for paying patients, consolidating the hospital’s role as the main facility for fever patients in Belfast, whether paying or pauper. Private accommodation was provided for treatment and convalescence and separation of the sexes comprising twelve wards with four beds each as well as a wash-house, drying loft, bathrooms and kitchen. A private entrance was made via the Donegall Road in November 1891, and map evidence suggests that this consisted of extending the boundary wall around the hospital in order to seal off the N elevation for private use. Dr Alexander Gardner Robb was superintendent medical officer in the Fever Hospital from 1900 to 1939. Robb, who was the son of a presbyterian minister and brother of John Hanna Robb, Education Minister (1937-1943), had been a resident medical officer in the Union Infirmary prior to his appointment at the Fever Hospital. Dr Robb became a significant figure in the treatment of scarlatina and cerebro-spinal fever, while at the Hospital, through his innovative use of serums. He was also known for his great skill in intubating patients with laryngeal obstruction as a symptom of diphtheria, a problem which had previously often led to tracheotomy (Craig). A NEW INFECTIOUS DISEASES HOSPITAL FOR BELFAST From about 1900, a drive began to develop the Infirmary and Fever Hospital up to modern hospital standards. As the workhouse was dependent for funding on the poor rate there was little money available to increase staff or improve building fabric. However, Dr Robb was a strong advocate for the needs of the Fever Hospital and it was at his prompting that the Guardians approved the expense for adding sanitary towers to the building. John Mackenzie (of Young & Mackenzie) was asked to supply designs for ‘annexes’ to the Fever Hospital to contain WCs, bathrooms and ‘lavatories’ (rooms for washing). After some delays, the works were carried out in 1902/3. These plain brick structures survive at the SW and NW corners of the building. Subsequently to this, the sills of the ground floor windows were dropped down to plinth level, increasing the window size, perhaps influenced by an early 20th century interest in the therapeutics of light. Photographic evidence shows that this change was made sometime between c1900 and 1953 and it may have been at this time that the original glass, which is likely to have been diamond panes, was replaced. In the closing decades of the 19th century infectious diseases such as TB, smallpox, scarlet fever, measles, whooping cough, typhus, diphtheria and typhoid fever accounted for nearly one third of all Belfast deaths. The Medical Superintendent Officer of Health for Belfast, Dr Whitaker, became concerned at the prevalence of infectious disease in the city and pointed out that ‘the respectable poor have a prejudice, foolish as it may be, but hard to overcome, against the Workhouse Hospital’. Whitaker worked to establish a new infectious diseases hospital outside the remit of the Board of Guardians that he felt would be better used by the public and would therefore help to bring down the death rate. Purdysburn Infectious Diseases Hospital opened in 1906 with 242 beds, the new hospital expanding the provision for fever patients rather than replacing the existing Fever Hospital. The total provision of 442 beds for Belfast was still thought to be inadequate at the time. THE FEVER HOSPITAL THROUGH TWO WORLD WARS At the start of WW1, the Fever Hospital was dealing with a significant outbreak of scarlatina/scarlet fever with over 200 patients recorded in a weekly return from November 1914 and this may be one of the reasons why the Hospital building was not offered by the Guardians for military use. Scarlet fever continued to be a significant issue for the Fever Hospital throughout the war and after with numbers of patients approaching 500 in the later months of 1919, necessitating the requisition of additional buildings on the workhouse site to house patients. During and after the war Belfast was also affected by the Spanish flu pandemic, which swept over the city in three waves. In June and July 1918, October to December 1918 and February to April 1919, hundreds of influenza patients passed through the Fever Hospital (a weekly maximum of 140 in November 1918, with 12 deaths that week), and three Infirmary nurses lost their lives to the disease. After Spanish flu came acute encephalitis lethargica or ‘sleepy sickness’ which began with a few isolated cases in 1920, at least one of which ended fatally. A ‘sharp outbreak’ of the disease was reported to the Public Health Committee by Dr Gardner Robb in April 1924. Thirty cases were admitted to the city’s fever hospitals in the spring of 1924, four of whom died. This mysterious disease, once thought to be connected to the Spanish Flu pandemic, could lead to profound disability or death and some patients were left with permanent neurological or psychiatric disorders. By 1931 there were still 60 patients in the Fever Hospital who were suffering from the sequelae of ‘Sleepy Sickness’, and who were known as ‘sleepers’. These patients remained in the Fever Hospital until it was taken over by the NHS in 1948. Accommodation at the workhouse had been gradually increased by extension and new construction until Belfast workhouse was, at the time of partition, the largest in Ireland (Dublin Union being split into two workhouses), ultimately having accommodation for almost four times the number it was built for (Farrell). The workhouse system was abolished in the Irish Free State in 1923 and in England and Wales in 1930, but the system persisted in Northern Ireland, despite increasing provision for the needy outside the workhouse. By 1938, nearly 70% of those in the Belfast workhouse were sick and cared for in the Infirmary or the Fever Hospital, the picture being similar across Northern Ireland and effectively making most workhouses into medical facilities, some formally changing to district hospitals during this period. At the outbreak of WW2, however, the Fever Hospital was relatively empty. In the aftermath of the first air raid on Belfast on 7th to 8th April 1941, many casualties both dead and alive were brought to the Union Infirmary which had been full to capacity when the air raid began. Following a second attack on 15th April which killed an estimated 900 people, the Fever Hospital was partially closed and made ready to receive emergency cases in the event of further raids. The infectious patients in the Fever Hospital were transferred to Purdysburn, although the 61 post encephalitis patients remained. A further two raids took place on 4-5 May and 5-6 May, and the Fever Hospital was one of the facilities used for casualties. The Union Infirmary was renamed City Hospital in October 1941, after these events had taken place. THE DAWN OF THE NHS On July 5th 1948, the powers of former Boards of Guardians were transferred to the new Health and Welfare authorities, and the workhouse became effectively a welfare hostel without any of the old Poor Law regulations. The remaining 51 inmates were transferred from Belfast workhouse in May and June 1959 (the workhouse formally closed on 12th June 1959, almost 120 years after first opening) and all the former workhouse buildings, including the Fever Hospital, were then handed over to the City Hospital. With advances in medicine, particularly the development of antibiotics, the Fever Hospital had been little used in the years leading up to the formation of the NHS. One of the first building projects to be approved by the Northern Ireland Hospitals Authority after its formation was the remodelling of the former Fever Hospital into a maternity and gynaecology unit at a cost of £42,000, conversion work commencing in 1949. The chimneys and ventilation tower were removed as part of this remodelling and the outbuildings to the rear of the Fever Hospital were demolished between 1953 and 1959. The Hospital was renamed Gardner Robb House, in memory of the former superintending physician of the Fever Hospital and was opened on 11th September 1952, by Dr Gardner Robb’s brother, John Hanna Robb, former Minister of Education, for 97 patients. The unit provided supplementary maternity facilities in addition to the Jubilee Maternity Hospital which had opened in 1935. THE FEVER HOSPITAL SINCE 1960 The Northern Ireland Hospitals Authority began to plan the redevelopment of the former workhouse site in 1960, and designs were produced for a new hospital tower, initially named Central Hospital, in 1965. The main workhouse site was cleared in 1967 and the foundation stone laid in 1971 with the Tower building coming into use in late 1985. The former Fever Hospital also benefitted from improvements, in this period, with works carried out to theatre facilities and electrical and mechanical engineering services in 1970. The architects were James Munce Partnership and the consulting engineers Messrs Abbott and Partners. It may have been around this time that the sills to first and second floor window openings were dropped slightly, following the earlier change to the ground floor windows, and an additional entrance was created to the right of the main entrance. Since 2016, some original window lintels have been replaced. The Gardner Robb was no longer used as a maternity unit after c1980. Gynaecology beds were moved from the Gardner Robb building into the tower. A single storey laboratory building was added adjacent to the SE elevation of the Gardner Robb in 1982, to designs by Diamond Redfern Anderson. Alterations were also made to the ground floor and basement so that the former Fever Hospital could be used for day procedures which continues to be its use to this day. A new ‘City Hospital’ station was opened in 1986 on the railway line (originally opened 1875) which passes to the N of the hospital, together with a footbridge and walkways connecting the station platforms to the hospital. The walkway has retained stretches of the former Fever Hospital wall and appears to have reused gate piers that may have formerly stood at the Donegall Road entrance to the Hospital. SUMMARY The former Fever Hospital has remained in continuous use as a medical facility since its opening in 1847. Externally the building has undergone change but has preserved its readability as a 19th century hospital building. Internally the original layout is largely intact, and Tudor arches, historic stair rails and the open roof structure on the top floor evoke the building’s origins within the workhouse complex. The Hospital was at the heart of the treatment and care of patients, particularly the poor and destitute, from the workhouse era and the Great Famine to the establishment of the NHS and played a central part in the evolution of the Belfast workhouse from a dreaded and harsh Victorian institution to a modern medical facility. Its location, separated from the former workhouse site, and its fabric, notably the high ceilings, segregated layout and sanitary towers embody the understanding of infectious disease and its transmission in the Victorian period. It is the only remaining workhouse Fever Hospital to have been designed by the celebrated Belfast architect Charles Lanyon, other surviving fever hospitals in the North of Ireland adhering more closely to Wilkinson’s standard plans. It is also one of the earliest hospital buildings to have survived in Belfast – only Clifton Street Poorhouse (built as a combined poorhouse and charitable hospital infirmary and opened 1774) is earlier in date. Workhouse Fever hospitals that survive in Northern Ireland are increasingly rare, and aside from the Gardner Robb building, are those in Armagh, Clogher and Lisburn. References: Primary Sources: 1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1832-3) 2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1858) 3. PRONI OS/6/1/61/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1901-2) 4. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1938) 5. Selected Belfast and Irish Newspapers 1838 to 2003 (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/) 6. PRONI BG/7/A/3-5 (1843-1847) Belfast Board of Guardians Minute Books 7. Communications by Poor Law Commissioners to the Boards of Guardians in Ireland, printed by the House of Commons, 4th June 1844 8. Returns relative to Poor Law Unions in Ireland, printed by House of Commons 8th July 1845 9. Appendices to 12th Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners. London: HMSO 1846 10. Appendices to 13th Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners. London: HMSO 1847 11. First Annual Report of the Commissioners for administering the laws for relief of the poor in Ireland. Dublin: HMSO 1848 12. Abstract of returns of number of temporary fever hospitals still kept up in each Union in Ireland, Printed by House of Commons, 11th June 1850 13. Dr McCabe’s report on the state of Belfast Workhouse, Printed by House of Commons, 17th August 1880 14. Belfast Health Commission Report to the Local Government Board for Ireland (1908), Dublin: HMSO 15. Smith, J L. An Investigation into the conditions affecting the occurrence of typhoid fever in Belfast, Journal of Hygiene, Vol 4, No 3 (July 1904), pp.407-433 16. Robb, A G. Some Observations on the recent outbreak of cerebro-spinal fever in Belfast, British Medical Journal, Vol2, No 2443, 26th October, 1907, pp.1129-1131 17. Robb, A G. The treatment of epidemic cerebrospinal fever by intraspinal injections of Flexner and Jobling’s anti-meningitis serum, British Medical Journal, Vol1, No 2459, 15th February 1908, pp.382-386 18. Robb, A G. Recent Epidemic Outbreaks of Acute Poliomyelitis, British Medical Journal, Vol 2, No 2905, 2nd September, 1916, pp.324-326 19. Robb, A G. Specific Anti-toxin in the treatment of Scarlet Fever, British Medical Journal, Vol 1, No 3392, 2nd January 1926, pp11-13 20. Obituary of A Gardner Robb, British Medical Journal, Vol 1, No 4143, 1st June 1940 (pp.913-4), 21. Large-scale OS maps (https://shop.centremapslive.co.uk/) 1858-1986 Secondary Sources: 22. Atcheson, R (2018) Poverty, poor relief and public health in Belfast c1800-1851. Unpublished PhD thesis, Queen’s University Belfast. 23. Atcheson, R (2022) ‘Poorhouse to Pandemic: Medical relief and public health in early nineteenth-century Belfast’ Belfast’ in Purdue, O ed. The first great charity of this town: the Belfast Charitable Society and its role in the developing city. Newbridge County Kildare: Irish Academic Press 24. Barton, Brian (2015) The Belfast Blitz: The City in the War Years. Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation 25. Belfast City Hospital (1987) Commemorative pamphlet published to celebrate the inauguration of the Tower Unit March 5th to 8th, 1987 26. Blaney, Dr Roger (1988) Belfast, 100 Years of Public Health. Belfast: Belfast City Council and Eastern Health and Social Services Board. 27. Clarke, R S J (2013) A directory of Ulster Doctors (who qualified before 1901). Vols 1-2. Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation 28. Craig, D H. (1985) The growth of a hospital from 1838-1948: Belfast and its infirmary. Belfast: Brough, Cox & Dunn 29. Dictionary of Irish Architects (www.dia.ie) 30. Dictionary of Irish Biography (www.dib.ie) 31. Farrell, M (1978) The Poor Law and the Workhouse in Belfast 1838-1948. Belfast: PRONI 32. Geary, L M (2004) Medicine and Charity in Ireland, 1718-1851. Dublin: University College Dublin Press 33. Gould, M H (1983) The workhouses of Ulster. Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society 34. Marsh, Patricia (2021) The Spanish Flu in Ireland: A socio-economic shock to Ireland, 1918-1919. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan 35. O’Brien Eoin and Crookshank, Anne with Wolstenholme, Gordon (1984) A Portrait of Irish Medicine: an illustrated history of medicine in Ireland. Swords, Co Dublin: Ward River Press 36. O’Connor, John (1995) Workhouses of Ireland. Dublin: Anvil Books 37. Thomas, L ‘Manifestations of Institutional Reform and Resistance to Reform in Ulster Workhouses, Ireland 1838-1855’. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, Vol 21, 1st April 2017, pp.867-900. 38. Higginbotham, Peter [consulted 11/01/2025] The Workhouse: the history of an institution www.workhouses.org.uk

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion D. Plan Form H-. Alterations detracting from building I. Quality and survival of Interior

Historic Interest

R. Age S. Authenticity T. Historic Importance V. Authorship Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance Z. Rarity X. Local Interest

Evaluation

The former Belfast Union Workhouse Fever Hospital was designed in the Tudor Gothic style by the eminent architect Charles Lanyon 1845-47 and further extended 1847-48 to accommodate the growing numbers of patients. In this building, Lanyon skilfully reworked the standard George Wilkinson plans for Fever Hospitals to provide accommodation for the growing numbers of patients, helping to evolve the typology to secure greater separation for the inflicted and better disease control. The building has been at the heart of the treatment and care of patients; not only the poor and destitute but also the fee-paying patients from the era of the workhouse and the Great Famine to the establishment of the NHS. The building eponymously takes its name from Dr Gardner Robb who, through the hospital, made significant advances in public health in Northern Ireland. The continuum of use of the building charts the treatment of infectious disease which has changed unrecognisably since the erection of the hospital over 175 years ago. The Gardner Robb Building is a near complete survival of its plan form with good quality masonry and exterior design details in basalt and Scrabo stone with natural slate to all roof slopes. Internally, the high ceilings, ventilation grilles, segregated layout and sanitary towers embody the understanding of infectious diseases in the Victorian period. The building displays the clarity of plan form of two large wards either side of a central hallway in each of the wings and stairs to the North and South - all redolent of the pared back aesthetic of surviving fever hospitals eschewing decoration and embellishment. The airy attic space retains historic coved ceilings and timber partitions. The Gardner Robb Building is the only surviving structure within the wider suite of 1840s buildings of the Belfast Workhouse complex. It is the only remaining workhouse fever hospital to have been designed by the celebrated Belfast architect Charles Lanyon. It is also one of the earliest hospital buildings to have survived in Belfast. Workhouse Fever hospitals that survive in Northern Ireland are increasingly rare, and aside from the Gardner Robb building, are those in Armagh, Clogher and Lisburn. Overall, the robust and imposing nature of the building structure and its cellular construction is a rare surviving example of early hospital architecture. The care for the poor in the 1840's fever hospital led directly to the site's continuing function as a medical facility.

General Comments

TO NOTE: At the time of listing, the Department acknowledges that the Belfast Trust is advancing redevelopment proposals which could include the demolition of the Gardner Robb Building, to provide essential additional capacity for patient care. Any proposal affecting this building will require Listed Building Consent, to be submitted to and determined by Belfast City Council in its role as Local Planning Authority. In this process, the Department will act as a statutory consultee. The Department will not oppose development that serves the wider interests of the people of Northern Ireland and acknowledges that while development proposals which demonstrably support the delivery of critical health services and the wider public interest may be appropriate, the ultimate decision rests with the Council. It is for the Council to consider the building’s heritage value alongside the significant health and community benefits associated with the Trust’s proposals, in line with planning policy at the time of determination

Date of Survey

22 May 2024