page_title: Royal Brisbane Hospital Nurses' Homes
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Brisbane Hospital Nurses' Homes / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Nurses' Homes, Royal Brisbane Hospital (2012)
context_page_description: The Royal Brisbane Hospital Nurses' Homes are heritage-listed accommodation for nurses at the Royal Brisbane Hospital, Herston Road, Herston, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1896 to 1939. It includes the Lady Lamington Nurses' Home and Nurses' Homes Blocks 1 & 2. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
context_section_description: The Nurses' Homes consist of three linked buildings which form an integrated complex organised around a series of courtyards. The Lady Lamington Nurses Home is a lower brick building, E-shaped in plan, with timber verandahs and Marseille tiled roofs. It is situated on the crest of the hill, a steeply sloping site, and has walled courtyards facing east which contain established gardens. Attached to the western side of the lower building are two eight-storeyed towers (Blocks 1 and 2) of masonry construction. Block 1 was built by local builder J. Hutchinson & Sons (now Hutchinson Builders) for £31,345 along with a new hospital ward (Block 4) valued at £59,195, which was built concurrently. These towers are positioned opposite the southernmost and the central wings of the "E". All three buildings have sweeping views of Brisbane due to the elevated siting; to the north and east from the verandahs of the Lady Lamington and panoramic prospects in all directions from Blocks 1 and 2.
  Built in three stages the Lady Lamington Nurses Home is two storeys with a basement in the older (1896) southernmost part. At the north eastern corner, the building perching dramatically on a steep slope is, due to the sudden fall in the land, five storeys tall. The courtyard gardens which contain mature palms, a poinciana, roses and azaleas are accessed from the verandahs via sweeping concrete stairs. The stairs and entrances to the courtyard are ornamented with concrete spheres mounted on low pillars.
  The verandahs have simple timber balustrades constructed of square dowels and arched timber valances between the verandah posts at the second top level; the ground floor level at the southernmost end. Below this level the verandah posts are mostly brick forming a screen wall with arched openings. The verandah floors, timber in the first stage, are concrete in stage two (1914) and three (1931). The continuous verandahs are connected vertically by a series of external fire escape stairs and ladders.
  The building has a gambrel roof, which also roofs the verandahs, and a number of brick chimneys. The chimney nearest the north eastern corner is brick with cement render bands. The English bond brickwork in the first section has been washed with a red-pigmented coating, and a cement-lime mixture has been painted on to resemble stretcher bond.
  All the wings are connected by long central corridors which have rows of identical cells on either side. Each room opens onto the verandah via large double hung windows with sills at floor level; ceilings are sheeted in galvanised ripple iron; the spaces between the interior partitions and the ceilings have been infilled, mostly with glass louvres.
  Climate-modulating features include:
  ridge-top location; 9 feet (2.7 m) wide verandahs to all sides
  large double hung windows which open from each room onto the verandahs
  tongue and groove interior partitions designed to assist cross ventilation by originally stopping 4 feet (1.2 m) short of the 13 feet (4.0 m) high
  The eight-storeyed Blocks 1 and 2, similar in appearance and organisation, form two sides of a bitumen surfaced yard which is open at the western end. The lower two storeys, one of which is partly below ground level, have external walls of face brickwork while the upper six storeys are finished with white painted cement render. Arcaded verandahs run along the northern and southern elevations. The building has a number of decorative features that connect it to the Spanish Mission style such as textured render, arched openings, ornate columns at the uppermost level and decorative brackets and awnings at the ground level. Windows are metal framed with smallish panes. Both buildings have flat roofs with sloped tiled parapets. The lift motor rooms which protrude above the parapet level have Marseille tiled external walls and castellated parapets.
  A lift and staircase is located at the eastern ends and a concrete staircase with metal balustrade at the western ends. The lift shaft is partly enclosed by a timber and glass screen. The eastern and western ends of the buildi
caption: 8-storey block, 2012
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