More information : Burton Upon Trent Union Workhouse was built between 1880 and 1884, at a cost £43,000 and could accommodate around 500 people. The architect was J. H Morton of South Shields. It was built of red brick in 'a plain type of Queen Anne' style. The workhouse comprised a large section for the general poor, a school section and detached infirmary. A porter's lodge, offices and waiting room were positioned at the main entrance with an archway through to reception rooms and tramps cells. Next to these single-storey buildings was a two-story block containing Guardians' offices and a board room. Behind the entrance block were the Master's house, dining hall and kitchens. The main inmates' accommodation lay in a series of two-storey pavilions. A nurses' home, designed by R.S. Litherland was added in 1928. In 1930 the workhouse became a Public Assistance Institution under Burton Upon Trent Corporation. In 1948 it was transferred to the National Health Service and developed as a general hospital known as Burton District Hospital. Some of the original buildings had been demolished and replaced when visited by English Heritage Site Investigators in 1993. [1-3]
The first Burton-upon-Trent Union Workhouse (now demolished) was built in 1838, between Horninglow Street and Hawkins Lane, to the designs of George Gilbert Scott and William Bonython Moffat. In 1880, construction began of a new larger workhouse to accommodate 550 patients at a site to the north-west of the town, on the south side of Belvedere Road. It was designed by J H Morton of South Shields, one of the first architects to adopt the separate-block plan, with pavilion principles, for the three elements which typically constituted a large workhouse complex: the main building or ‘house’, the infirmary and the school. Morton's South Shields Union Workhouse of 1877-80 (of which only a few of the original workhouse buildings survive), having a purely administrative central block and pavilions without internal corridors, set the pattern for future workhouses. While the components of South Shields and most other late-19th century workhouses were laid out in regimented rows, the school and workhouse buildings of Morton’s Burton-upon-Trent Union Workhouse radiated from a curving covered way. This was echoed in an angular string of entrance buildings, including the offices, receiving wards and casual wards. The infirmary stood at the back along with the mortuary and stable block. In 1930 the workhouse became a Public Assistance Institution under Burton-upon-Trent Corporation, transferring to the National Health Service in 1948. In 1971 it became Burton District Hospital and the site was subsequently re-developed resulting in the demolition of a large number of the original workhouse buildings of which only the central administrative block, board room, school and children's pavilion blocks, connected by a curving corridor, now survive.
The former administrative building, now known as 'The House', accommodates the hospital's patient advice and liaison service. It is designed in a pared-down Tudor Revival style and is of brick with stone dressings, tiled roofs and brick stacks. Of a roughly rectangular plan, the building has a two-storey, five-bay, symmetrical principal elevation with flanking single-storey wings. To the centre there is a projecting, gabled, entrance bay, flanked on either side by recessed bays which are, in turn, flanked by projecting, gabled bays. Flanking these are single-storey, gabled wings. The central doorway is semi-circular arched within a stone surround, over which is a stilted, segmental-arched, stone pediment. To the gable of the central bay there is a stone plaque bearing the date 1882 and the Burton-upon-Trent County Borough coat of arms. All windows are mullioned and transomed with stone surrounds. To the roof there are two ridge stacks with moulded cornices and two gable-end stacks with late-20th century rebuilt upper sections.
Guidance on the designation of workhouse buildings is laid down in the English Heritage Listing Selection Guide for Health and Welfare Buildings (April 2011) and states that Old Poor Law workhouses (pre- 1834) and the first generation of New Poor Law workhouses (1834-41) are likely to be listed. Corridor-plan (typically of 1840-1870) and pavilion plan (1870-1914) workhouses need to meet more rigorous criteria, especially regarding their architectural quality, the degree of intactness, and group value with related structures. Those built after 1870 should be tested according to more stringent criteria, focusing on architectural quality. In this case, therefore, it is considered that the former central administrative building to the Burton-upon-Trent Union Workhouse does not meet the criteria for designation for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest: the building is typical of the architecture of the period and, whilst being a competent example of the Tudor Revival style, it does not exhibit the high degree of architectural interest that is required from a house of this late date.
Materials and craftsmanship: are typical of the period, appearing to use mass-produced materials rather than demonstrating a high degree of individual craftsmanship.
Plan: although the building was designed by J H Morton of South Shields, the pioneer of the pavilion plan of workhouse design, the demolition of a large proportion of the workhouse has now eroded this evolutionary plan.
Group value: it does not comprise part of a particularly well-preserved group of workhouse buildings, particularly as a significant proportion of the workhouse complex has now been demolished.
It is acknowledged that the building known as ‘The House’, formerly the central administrative building to the Burton-upon-Trent Union Workhouse, is of local interest for being both a competently designed building in the Tudor revival style and for being one of the better surviving buildings from the workhouse complex. It lacks, however, the special architectural or historic interest that is required, in a national context, to fulfil the criteria for listing.
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