Where?
The Infirmary is part of the Workhouse, near the minster town of Southwell in Nottinghamshire.
What is it?
Opened
The National Trust opened the Workhouse in 2002, having bought it in 1997 with National Lottery Heritage Fund help. The Infirmary reopened in July, after a five-year restoration.
Collection
The buildings themselves are by far the most important pieces in the collection. In the original 1824 building, visitors experience the institutional design that separated men from women, adults from children, and those who were capable of work from those who were not.
The Infirmary reflects the raised standards that notables such as Florence Nightingale campaigned for. The oral history recordings are also an important part of the collection.
“We spoke to former staff and children who lived on site in the 1920s,” Austin says. “Others told us they were born here when its role broadened to healthcare for the local community. This medical role transferred away to the National Health Service from 1948. Matrons, cooks, welfare officers and care workers came forward to tell us about the less celebrated National Assistance care that remained.”
Highlights
Austin singles out an experience as her highlight. “Treading the stairs that separated one group from another is the best way to understand the cunning efficiency of the architecture.” The oral history records informed the decoration of the Infirmary. “We relished evoking the feel of the 1980s. But you come closest to these people in our room of memory boxes where we share extracts from interviews.”
Help at hand
About 14 people make up the Workhouse team. There are around 250 volunteers, many of whom were recruited 20 years ago and are now expert interpreters.
Sticky moment
“Ah,” says Austin. “It seemed reasonable to assume our boardroom held the large table and chairs shown in inventories and illustrations of similar rooms at the time, so we had a set of boardroom chairs made on site.” Then Austin noticed an 1871 complaint from the district auditor and overseer in the records. “Not only was the boardroom bitterly cold but it ‘had a stone floor, wooden forms for seats and no chairs’.”
Survival tip
Offer historically accurate booze. “Our resourceful operations manager, Nina Corey, invested in some Babycham for the opening,” Austin says. “Absolutely in period for our 1980s rooms and cheap, too!”
Visitor numbers
53,000. The Workhouse and Infirmary aims for 78,000 visitors by 2025.
Future plans
Adventurous programming will play a huge role in the future of the workhouse and infirmary. More tours and live interpretation are planned and an annual theme provides focus. This year’s theme is mental health.
The Infirmary is part of the Workhouse, near the minster town of Southwell in Nottinghamshire.
What is it?
“It is the best-preserved workhouse in the country,” says Susanna Austin, the freelance project curator for Re-imagining the Workhouse, a project to reinterpret the site using two decades of research. “The 1824 workhouse building is amazingly unaltered. The site demonstrates in bricks and mortar the social history of this country, from 1834’s New Poor Law to the welfare state and beyond.”
The Infirmary, which was added in 1871, expanded care for those who needed nursing due to disabilities or chronic illness. Later renamed Firbeck House, it was still in use in the late 1980s. Other on-site buildings still provide care funded by the local authority.
Opened
The National Trust opened the Workhouse in 2002, having bought it in 1997 with National Lottery Heritage Fund help. The Infirmary reopened in July, after a five-year restoration.
Collection
The buildings themselves are by far the most important pieces in the collection. In the original 1824 building, visitors experience the institutional design that separated men from women, adults from children, and those who were capable of work from those who were not.
The Infirmary reflects the raised standards that notables such as Florence Nightingale campaigned for. The oral history recordings are also an important part of the collection.
“We spoke to former staff and children who lived on site in the 1920s,” Austin says. “Others told us they were born here when its role broadened to healthcare for the local community. This medical role transferred away to the National Health Service from 1948. Matrons, cooks, welfare officers and care workers came forward to tell us about the less celebrated National Assistance care that remained.”
Highlights
Austin singles out an experience as her highlight. “Treading the stairs that separated one group from another is the best way to understand the cunning efficiency of the architecture.” The oral history records informed the decoration of the Infirmary. “We relished evoking the feel of the 1980s. But you come closest to these people in our room of memory boxes where we share extracts from interviews.”
Help at hand
About 14 people make up the Workhouse team. There are around 250 volunteers, many of whom were recruited 20 years ago and are now expert interpreters.
Sticky moment
“Ah,” says Austin. “It seemed reasonable to assume our boardroom held the large table and chairs shown in inventories and illustrations of similar rooms at the time, so we had a set of boardroom chairs made on site.” Then Austin noticed an 1871 complaint from the district auditor and overseer in the records. “Not only was the boardroom bitterly cold but it ‘had a stone floor, wooden forms for seats and no chairs’.”
Survival tip
Offer historically accurate booze. “Our resourceful operations manager, Nina Corey, invested in some Babycham for the opening,” Austin says. “Absolutely in period for our 1980s rooms and cheap, too!”
Visitor numbers
53,000. The Workhouse and Infirmary aims for 78,000 visitors by 2025.
Future plans
Adventurous programming will play a huge role in the future of the workhouse and infirmary. More tours and live interpretation are planned and an annual theme provides focus. This year’s theme is mental health.
Louise Gray is a freelance writer
