Western Infirmary – Standing Remains of John Burnet Sr’s 1874 Building
Description
These standing remains comprise the western north-south range of John Burnet Sr’s 1874 Western Infirmary. The ruins are located in a car park to the north of the Phase I building and to the east of G Block.
This range was completed before the mirroring range to the east was built. Following the construction of the north-south range the Infirmary expanded steadily during the next decades. Extensions to the wards and a new Nurses Home were added to the north of the Infirmary in 1881 and John James Burnet’s range to the west, G Block, was added in 1906 and extended in 1911. Burnet Sr's buildings were all built in the Scots Baronial style which contrasts with the later freestanding buildings to the west, including the Pathology, Bacteriology and Immunology building begun in 1894 and the Outpatients Department, begun in 1902, which were built by J.J. Burnet in a Scots Renaissance style.
By the 1950s, it was decided that a modern complex of buildings was required especially due to the high maintenance costs of the Burnet buildings. A two phase programme was planned but following the opening of Phase I in 1974 Phase II was indefinitely postponed, partially due to the completion of nearby Gartnavel General. Burnet Sr’s Infirmary building was demolished in the 1980s and the north-south range ruins are all that remain. The surviving fragments of this building are in two parts: to the north is one pair of corners and to the south another pair, with the arch between them surviving. The semi-circular arch consists of quirked angle rolls terminating at the springing point with tapered chamfer stops. The ruins have been consolidated with cement and the wallheads have been capped with a course of rubble-faced masonry. In this consolidation the quoins and ashlar dressings were not respected resulting in confusion between the consolidated and the original material.
Summary
Western Infirmary – Standing Remains of John Burnet Sr’s 1874 Building
Western Infirmary
Glasgow
Record last updated: 20th Aug 2015
