Survey Data
Reg No
50080472
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Original Use
Building misc
In Use As
Building misc
Date
1950 - 1955
Coordinates
308424, 233768
Date Recorded
14/06/2013
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached L-plan four-bay single-storey mortuary, built 1953. Pitched sheeted roofs with oversailing corbelled timber eaves and metal rainwater goods. Roughcast rendered walls with smooth rendered plinth. Square-headed window openings having rendered reveals and concrete sills. Circular window to projecting bay of front (east) elevation, having cruciform metal tracery. Steel-framed and replacement uPVC windows. Square-headed door openings to re-entrant corner of front elevation, one double-leaf timber panelled door and one single-leaf timber panelled door, both with opaque overlights and rendered reveals. Located within grounds of Cherry Orchard Hospital, to east of main hospital building.
Appraisal
Cherry Orchard Hospital campus was planned to replace Cork Street Fever Hospital as the main centre for infectious diseases from 1939, and was built on the periphery of Ballyfermot in 1953. This small mortuary was one of several buildings designed as a coherent group, by Alan Hope with F.G. Hicks and G.P. Bell, including a large hospital, eleven single-storey blocks of wards, an oratory, a gate lodge, and accommodation for staff. The hospital complex is of social interest as part of the hospital building campaign spearheaded by Dr. Noël Browne as Minister for Health. Sixty years after its construction this building continues to function as a mortuary. The mortuary is also of architectural interest for its modern style with a shallow pitched roof, variety of window types and placement, and a lack of applied adornment, which are typical features of mid-twentieth-century institutional architecture.