Rotunda Hospital

Corner-sited attached four-storey hospital building over exposed basement, built 1895 to designs by Albert E. Murray, having five-bay facade to south and grouped four-bay facade to west. Roof and ashlar limestone chimneystacks concealed by tooled granite parapet with granite coping and architrave. Rusticated walls to ground floor having round-headed recesses to window bays with tooled limestone voussoirs. Ashlar stone walls elsewhere with tooled limestone sill course to first floor window openings. Diminishing square-headed window openings throughout having stone reveals and granite sills. Mixed six-over-nine and five-over-nine pane timber sliding sash windows to ground floor openings. Two-over-two pane timber sliding sash windows with quadrant horns to third floor, two-over-three and six-over-nine pane windows to second and ground floors respectively and double-leaf five-pane casements having four-pane fixed overlight to first floor. Square-headed door opening within doorcase having ashlar voussoirs, flanked by ashlar panels and having elliptical relieving arch with channelled voussoirs. Timber ten-panel door having overlight and slender fixed five-pane sidelights opening onto platform flanked by moulded granite plinth enclosing area and with wrought-iron railings over with ornate gate posts.

This pleasant early twentieth-century hospital wing holds the corner of Parnell Square. It makes an imposing impression on the streetscape and forms a distinct and mannerist addition to the eighteenth-century hospital complex of which it is part. Although with a variety of distinctly twentieth-century window formats, it is a fine example of a building which has been built to a design that is in keeping with its context, making an important contribution to the streetscape whilst adding variety to the architectural fabric of the north Georgian city.