20th Century, Rickitts Convalescent Home (EHER 15654)

Early 20th century convalescent home. Founded by private donation in 1909 as a branch of the Royal Northern Hospital. Brick-built convalescent home for twenty adults and five children. Rectangular lodge housing 2-bed isolation ward. Designed by H. Edmund Mathews.

The Reckitt Home was erected and furnished by Francis Reckitt J.P. in 1908 and presented together with the land, to the Great Northern and Central Hospital (Royal Northern Hospital). Built at a cost of £5,000, the home was designed by H. Edmund Matthews to accommodate 20 adult patients and five children; rooms were also provided for nursing and domestic staff. The home is designed around a wide central corridor which extends the length of the building linking the stairwells at each end and providing access to the rooms and wards on both floors. The wards and day-rooms were deliberately sited on the south-east elevation in order to benefit from the sun and air; the utilitarian rooms including the kitchen, dining room, scullery, and the staff/nurse accommodation being relegated to the more elaborate, but less well lit, front bays. Male/female day rooms were located in the two rear projections at ground-floor level lit by large south-facing bay windows and flanked, on the outer bays, by verandas (both the bay windows and verandas have since been removed). Patients sanitary blocks located at both levels in the end bays are detached from the wards and day-rooms lying beside the stairwells, while private sanitary/bathing facilities were provided for staff. A dining hall lit by a large round-headed window is sited centrally on the ground-floor with stores and a kitchen in the bays to the north-east; the entrance hall and waiting/reception rooms lie to the south-west. A single-storey range extending from the northern-most bays and linked to the kitchen housed the scullery, larder and coal store. Directly over the day-rooms were corresponding male/female eight bed wards which flanked a two and four bed ward and two nurses rooms. The matron’s room, guest rooms and sick nurse rooms lie immediately opposite the eight bed wards with the cook and maids quarters sited in the central projection over the dining hall. The two-storey convalescents home is built in the Queen Mary Style with red stock bricks laid in Flemish bond and a blue brick chamfered wall plinth. The angles have projecting brick quoins, while the roofs are both hipped and gabled. Two large square stacks, with oversailing brickwork, project through the main roof from hearths in the day rooms, wards and dining hall. The facade contains three main projections; the central example is of four bays with a hipped roof and a segmental pediment. The large round-headed sash window of the dining hall is flanked by narrow sashes and inscribed on the brick apron below the first-floor window is ‘THE CONVALESCENTS HOME’ together with the date of 1908. A classical style porch, formerly surmounted by a domed roof, is built onto the main entrance and includes four Tuscan columns and two pilasters which support a now open, dentillated entablature. Pilasters on the corresponding bays to the north, lend symmetry to the facade. The two flanking two bay projections both have triangular pediments and a centrally placed oculus within the tympanum. The eaves are dentillated and the windows have gauged segmental heads with large double hung sashes. The gabled ranges extending from the end walls house both the sanitary blocks and the stairwells. The rear south-east facing elevation, predominantly mirrors the architecture of the facade but lacks its ornate detail. The projecting ward/dormitory wings flank a seven-bay range which contains a central door surmounted by a plain flat canopy. Over the head of the canopy is a stone cartouche with an inscription commemorating the donation by Francis Reckitt J.P. of the Convalescent Home to the Royal Northern Hospital. A single-storey lodge house built in the same architectural style stands to the north-west and was reportedly used as a two bed isolation ward. Some original planting and parts of the perimeter wall survive. A large modern nursing home, Haven Lodge, built by the Essex Rivers Health Care Trust occupies the grounds to the south. <1> <3> Archaeological Potential: The lack of modern additions or major alterations (apart from the removal of the verandas) suggests that much of the spatial configuration survives including room divisions, corridors, wards and service areas. This will provide important information on attitudes toward patient segregation, sanitation and hospital design in the early twentieth-century. <1> Site Significance: One of three convalescents homes identified during the survey (SMR Nos. 15652 and 15653), this is unusual example which retains its original fenestration and glazing. The interiors could be of a high standard; of national importance. <1> Site Management: The Reckitts Convalescents Home has recently been in use by the Essex Rivers Health Care Trust, but the building is currently redundant and may be under threat. An internal inspection should be undertaken at the earliest opportunity to assess the survival of internal spaces/features/decoration. Prior to any future works an ‘impact assessment’ may be needed to assess which elements of the original fabric warrant retention and detailed recording needs to form an integral element of any future development proposal. <1> Detailed building survey and photographic record carried out in 2000.<2> Information from NRHE data import. Additional source <4>