C O N T E X T 1 0 8 : M A R C H 2 0 0 9 25 49 parishes of the Thurgarton Incorporation. The new building, with segregated sections for males and females, and a central supervisory hub from where the master could view almost all of the workhouse yards, undoubtedly influenced later workhouse designs. The site is now preserved by the National Trust. The overhaul of the poor relief system that took place in 1834 created new administrative bodies known as poor law unions, typically comprising 20 or 30 parishes around a market town. Each of the 600 or so new unions was required to provide a strictly run workhouse for its paupers, with the aim of ending out-relief. There was some initial suggestion that unions might operate several small workhouses, perhaps recycling existing parish workhouses, to cater for different groups – males, females, the elderly, children and so on. However, for reasons of economy and operational simplicity, the majority of unions settled on a single, new, purpose-built structure, located fairly centrally within the union’s borders. To assist unions, the central poor law commissioners commissioned model plans from the young architect Sampson Kempthorne. Kempthorne’s designs, often compared with prison schemes of the day, were mostly radial in form, with a central supervision hub from which the accommodation for different classes of inmate emanated like spokes of a wheel. The threespoke or Y-plan, when completed with its perimeter of outbuildings, formed a hexagon in outline; the fourspoke cruciform design produced a square-shaped outline. Another model design, by Sir Francis Head and only much adopted in Kent, was the courtyard plan, where the inmates’ accommodation was arranged around a central quadrangle. Each side, two storeys high, comprised a number of small dormitories, each roughly the size of a typical poor labourer’s cottage. A number of examples of each of these designs survive. Y-plan workhouses can be seen at Warminster, Bath, Frome, Crediton and Exeter St Thomas. Squareplan workhouses include those at Slough, Andover, Bromyard and Hastings. Among courtyard-plan survivals are Blean, Bridge, andWest Ashford. Union workhouses were virtually self-sufficient communities. As well as being equipped with dormitories, day-rooms, ablutions, kitchens, bakery, dining-hall, chapel, laundry, infirmary, mortuary, punishment cell, workshops and stores, many grew their own vegetables and fattened pigs on the waste from the kitchen and dining-hall. Workhouses also provided overnight accommodation wards for vagrants who, in return, were required to perform manual labour such as stone-breaking. By the late 1830s, workhouse designs were already evolving. Between around 1836 and 1846, the partnership of George Gilbert Scott and William Bonython Moffatt designed more than 40 workhouses, many featuring a characteristically styledT-shaped main building. Many of their designs introduced an elegance and ornamentation that were lacking in Kempthorne’s deliberately plain facades. Surviving examples of Scott and Moffatt’s workhouses include Witham in Essex, Macclesfield and Windsor – the latter almost evoking a stately home although, thanks to the foresightedness of the planners, a beautifully preserved vagrants’ block survives amongst what is now upmarket housing. Not every union rushed to erect a new workhouse building. Some had existing properties that could readily be adapted. A number of London parishes were large enough to operate without needing to form a union and carried on using their existing premises. Some unions, particularly in the north of England and inWales, completely resisted the imposition of the New Poor Law and the new workhouse system. However, a further wave of workhouse construction took place in the 1860s-1880s as decrepit parish workhouses were finally replaced or recalcitrant unions were forced to cooperate. Revelations in The Lancet about the dire state of many workhouse infirmaries resulted in the erection of improved facilities, often on separate sites. Many of the later workhouse buildings and their associated infirmaries were stylish and state-of-theart designs. For example, the Wakefield union’s new infirmary (opened in 1898) had filtered, washed and humidified air, electric lighting and its own internal telephone system. At the time of writing, more than 300 of England’s former union workhouses still survive, at least in part, the majority now converted to residential use. Many of the remainder form parts of hospital sites and are the most at risk from destruction to make way for car parks or new buildings. Often the problem is finding a new use for an old and sometimes awkward building. Even where preservation plans have been agreed, developers have sometimes proved – like many former inmates – remarkably keen to see the back of the old building. In 2004, at Langport in Somerset, builders ‘accidentally’ demolished the former union workhouse that was to stand at the centre of a large new housing scheme. However, excellent examples of what can be achieved with imagination and enterprise can be found at Long Ashton (now offices), Guildford (the old tramps’ block now a museum and community centre) and Stockport (centrepiece of a major expansion to Stockport College). Left: The Bedminster union’s 1837 workhouse, designed by Scott and Moffatt, now sympathetically converted for use as offices. Right:The recently restored tramps’ block at Guildford workhouse.The individual cells each had a small window, visible in the upper part of the main building. Peter Higginbotham is a freelance writer and speaker on the workhouse and related subjects. He is author of www. workhouses.org.uk, a comprehensive history of the institution.
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