Ford's Hospital, Greyfriars Lane, Coventry, England
The exquisite tiny courtyard. The building still operates as a modern almshouse and is therefore normally closed to the public, but you can always poke your camera through the ornate iron gate from the street as I did.
Only the downpipes and rainwater heads post-date the original build. The heads themselves date to 1784.
It was founded in 1509 by William Ford who endowed an almshouse for 5 men and a woman. This was completed, before his death in 1517, by William Pisford who increased the size of the endowment providing for six men and their wives. By 1800 the charity had become confined to women only. The North Side of the hospital was directly hit by a bomb in 1940 which killed the warden, a nurse and six residents. The damaged area was rebuilt in 1951-3 using original timbers and the whole structure was restored.
Wikipedia states it was constructed with a large amount of teak; surely an incredibly expensive and difficult to obtain imported item in early 16th century England, but being such a hard wood, perhaps why the timbers survived the bombing.
I'm no expert, but I've never heard of teak being used at this date before, certainly for vernacular buildings.
Grade l listed it is considered one of the finest examples of this style of vernacular architecture. (Wonderful carving on the barge-boards around the gables and the upper windows - easy to miss there is so much detail!)
In 2006, the building was used as a location for the episode of Doctor Who called The Shakespeare Code. In attempting to reconstruct the Globe Theatre, Shakespeare scholars have used Ford's Hospital to understand Elizabethan doorways.
Ford's Hospital, Greyfriars Lane, Coventry, England
The exquisite tiny courtyard. The building still operates as a modern almshouse and is therefore normally closed to the public, but you can always poke your camera through the ornate iron gate from the street as I did.
Only the downpipes and rainwater heads post-date the original build. The heads themselves date to 1784.
It was founded in 1509 by William Ford who endowed an almshouse for 5 men and a woman. This was completed, before his death in 1517, by William Pisford who increased the size of the endowment providing for six men and their wives. By 1800 the charity had become confined to women only. The North Side of the hospital was directly hit by a bomb in 1940 which killed the warden, a nurse and six residents. The damaged area was rebuilt in 1951-3 using original timbers and the whole structure was restored.
Wikipedia states it was constructed with a large amount of teak; surely an incredibly expensive and difficult to obtain imported item in early 16th century England, but being such a hard wood, perhaps why the timbers survived the bombing.
I'm no expert, but I've never heard of teak being used at this date before, certainly for vernacular buildings.
Grade l listed it is considered one of the finest examples of this style of vernacular architecture. (Wonderful carving on the barge-boards around the gables and the upper windows - easy to miss there is so much detail!)
In 2006, the building was used as a location for the episode of Doctor Who called The Shakespeare Code. In attempting to reconstruct the Globe Theatre, Shakespeare scholars have used Ford's Hospital to understand Elizabethan doorways.