1920s hospital, 'Harwich and District Hospital' (formerly 'The Harwich and District Cottage Hospital and Fryatt Memorial'), Main Road (EHER 15640)

Cottage hospital opened in 1922 after the purchase and conversion of a 2-storey rectangular house (built 1911), mainly using private donations. Later additions included an operating theatre, an X-ray room and outpatients department.

Original HER entry merged with NRHE data import. The hospital was originally built in 1911 as a private house named Rosebank for Colonel Coysh. It was sold in December 1921 for £4,000 and, after its enlargement and conversion was officially re-opened by Lord C. Hamilton P.C. in April 1922 as the Harwich and District Cottage Hospital and Fryatt Memorial. The hospital was named in memory of a local hero, Captain Charles A. Fryatt, the master of the Great Eastern Company steamship ‘Brussels’, who was executed by the German Navy at Bruges in 1916 after attempting to ram a German U-boat that had summoned him to surrender. Initially built to provide 10 beds, the hospital was enlarged in 1925, with the addition of a new wing which included a four bed men's ward, a new operating theatre (the original theatre was on the first floor), two private wards, nurses accommodation and two open-air shelters for sunlight treatment. An electrical annexe providing radiant heat baths, electrical treatment, massage, UV lamp treatment and a new x-ray room was added in 1926; this was extended in 1932 with the construction of an out-patients department and new consulting rooms. The hospital became part of the newly formed NHS in 1948; a maternity wing was opened in 1959, in 1964 a lift was added to the facade, and improvements were made to the wards in 1966 and again in 1971. A new out-patients department, built at a cost of £32,000, was opened by the Duchess of Kent in 1973 and a modern Day hospital was also erected at the west end of the site. The original hospital is a two-storey three-bay building with elevations of red brick in Flemish bond, rendered with plaster from first-floor to eaves level. Diagonally set stacks extend through the hipped main roof, whilst gable ended projections with jettied first-floors, extend to the front in the central and western bays. The jettied bays are decorated with pargetting at eaves level while ornate nautical brackets support the first-storey. The eastern bay has a mock-open timbered first-floor over a raised flat-roofed entrance hall, reached from the courtyard by six stone steps. Bay windows are present in the jettied bays and a timber oriel window lies at first-floor level; the original windows have all been replaced with modern double glazed units. To the west is a later wing probably built as part of the initial conversion to a hospital in 1922; built in a similar architectural style, it has five bays with a hipped roof and a three bay projection to the front. The windows are mainly segmental headed, although a large semi-hexagonal bay window, with brick mullions and a shaped parapet lights the wards at ground level. A large, now blocked and leaded roof-light, built into the roofline of the front projection, would have lit the first-floor operating theatre (later moved to the 1925 wing). To the west lies an admixture of extensions including a gable ended half-rendered range, a flat-roofed out-patients block of 1932 and the 1973 enlargement of out-patients block. To the east of the main range and sited adjacent to the boiler and generator blocks stands an electrical annexe and to the rear (south), a large flat-roofed maternity block. The site continues to function as a small rural hospital with out-patients and maternity wards. <1><2> Additional references <3>