Royal Brisbane Hospital Nurses' Homes
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. History The Royal Brisbane Hospital Nurses' Homes comprises three buildings: the Lady Lamington Nurses Home erected in three stages between 1896 and 1931 and Nurses Homes Blocks 1 and 2 erected in 1936 and 1939 respectively. The Royal Brisbane Hospital (then known as the Brisbane Hospital) was established at the Herston site in 1866. This was followed by the Hospital for Sick Children (1883) erected on an adjoining site fronting Herston Road and much later, in 1938, by the Brisbane Women's Hospital on Bowen Bridge Road. The earliest buildings of the Brisbane Hospital were gathered around the corner of Bowen Bridge and Herston Roads, with later wards and associated buildings gradually erected higher up the hill. Pressure for improved nurses accommodation finally came to fruition when (what was to be the first stage of) the Lady Lamington Nurses Home was erected in 1896 on the crest of the hill overlooking the hospital. The "L" shaped building selected by the Committee from a number of competition designs was submitted by architect Robin Dods. It included accommodation for some fifty nurses in cubicles partitioned to below ceiling height for better ventilation; a sitting room with fireplace on each floor; servants' quarters at basement level; and a two storeyed semi-detached toilet block (since demolished). Built of brick with a Marseilles tiled roof (believed to be one of the earliest uses of the material in Queensland), it was enclosed by verandahs; the semicircular steps to the court yard garden became a popular posing place for nurses photographs. Although the competition brief called for a kitchen and dining room, these were not included. In 1914, Hall & Dods called tenders for additions forming the building into a "U" shape; the contract was let to Brisbane builder George Day, at a price of £11,889. Lady Lamington Nurses Home (named for the wife of the then State Governor) was the first of Dods' Queensland buildings and established the practice of Hall & Dods (1896-1916), which quickly became the leading architectural firm in Queensland undertaking numerous residential, commercial, ecclesiastical, and hospital works (including the Mater Misericordia Hospital – Private (1908–10), Public (1909–11, extended 1913), Nurses Quarters and Kitchen (1913)). Other work undertaken at the Brisbane Hospital included the Superintendent's Residence (1900; removed 1970s), laundry and boiler house (1904), open air pavilion for male surgical patients (1912), Walter Russell Hall Operating Theatre (1914; now the Canteen), and Outpatients Building (1916; now Block 10) as well as Open Air Wards (1911; now workshops and storerooms) and administration building (1911; now fire and security offices) for the Metropolitan Infectious Diseases Hospital (now included as part of the RBH site). Lady Lamington Nurses Home was