Posted 13 March 2021
Today is the 150th anniversary of #TheAlfredHospital welcoming its first patient !
It was designed by Charles Webb (who later did the Windsor) in a kind of Flemish mode, with plenty of #polychromebrickwork, a relatively early example. His plan included multiple separate ward blocks, on the ‘nightingale’ principle of fresh air circulation.
The first stage was built 1869-71, and seems to have had just a central block and one ward block, judging from the photo. But instead of adding a new wing next, they added a floor, then a gatehouse on the street for some reason. Then various wings maybe following the initial plan, in a similar style.
But then a tall one in the 30s, then two blond brick 60s wings, then in more recent years big blocky wings, all these replacing the earlier ones. Now there’s only one left, the #LinayPavilion, built with funds donated by local timber merchant John Linay in 1885, which includes a chapel, now the prayer room. It’s rather hidden behind later buildings, but in the original style, pretty intact, and on the #heritageregister as the oldest ‘nightingale’ block left in Victoria.
I remember a large similar style nurses home on the Punt Road side, I think 1920s, demolished in the 90s. There was a rather cute house (gatehouse?) on the far west of the site too, which disappeared in 2010. Photos @library_vic, @heritagecouncilvic, and The Alfred’s website or Facebook.
December 2025
Some pics of the Linay Pavilion.
There’s an impressive staircase, and a number of nice stained glass windows too. It was a long thin ward block, with windows on both sides, on the ‘nightingale’ principle. It’s now various offices and a 90s chapel space.
They’ve also preserved the elaborate cast iron front gates, made in Coalbrookdale, at the heart of the British cast-iron industry.
I was visiting a freind who had a curiously industrial view of chimneys, including a huge old brick one did they have their own power plant ?!
Storey of Melbourne 