The Massereene Hospital in Antrim

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The Massereene Hospital in Antrim was originally built as a workhouse. It was constructed as part of the Antrim Poor Law Union, formed on 13th May 1840. There were in total 28 Poor Law Unions in the area now covered  by Northern Ireland, all dating from between 1838 and 1948, when the Poor Law was finally abolished and the welfare state was established.

The hospital was located on Station Road in Antrim, close to the town  centre and marked as Railway Street in the map below. 

The architect was George Wilkinson (1814–1890). As a workhouse, it followed one of Wilkinson's standard designs. The entrance building at  the east served both as an administrative block and as a reception area. It contained a porter's room and waiting room at the centre, while the Guardians'   board room was located on the first floor above. 

The main hospital building is set well back from the entrance building,  and consists of a long 14 or 15-bay central section (hard to see exactly  how many bays there were) of two storeys flanked by taller three-storey  2-bay gable-topped end blocks. Behind it there were utility rooms, such  as a bakehouse, a laundry, refectory and a chapel. There was also a burial  ground to the rear of the hospital. 

 In 1921, following the partition of Ireland, the workhouse became Massereene  District Hospital, and so it remained untill and beyond 1948 when it became  part of the newly established National He alth Service.The hospital closed  in 1995 and was demolished to make way for a Tesco store, built in 2003.   The view behind the entrance block can be seen below. [P] 

Sources: 

The information in this article is indebted to the work of Peter Higginbotham through his website http://www.workhouses.org.uk