Monument record OUL 006 - Lothingland Hospital; Oulton Poor Law Institution; Union Workhouse

Mutford and Lothingland Incorporated Hundred Workhouse erected in 1765, for background information see (S1). Layout, buildings, and burial ground shown on OS 1927 map (S2). The cost of building is described by Shaw (S3).
Converted into hospital in C20.
At least half of the buildings shown on 1927 map appear to have been demolished.

The study area contains no known sites or monuments of archaeological significance. Although unknown earlier sites may have existed in the vicinity, this part of north east Suffolk appears to have been thinly settled at best, with even medieval settlements such as Oulton and Flixton being represented only by an isolated church and a handful of houses. The site in question was therefore probably not occupied until 1765 when the hospital itself was erected as a workhouse (the House of Industry). The workhouse has seen several phases of enlargement and alteration: the main range of the original building appears to have been the only survival of the initial open-courtyard house, and that has also now been removed. Of the earlier hospital buildings, only the former chapel (now ambulance station) remains, and this lies just outside the development area. It will be seen that nothing now stands within the development area (S4).

Monitoring identified no archaeological features pre-dating the hospital were observed in the eastern part of the site where natural deposits were exposed. None of the original 1765 House of Industry building and little of the rest of the hospital buildings could be recorded. This was in part due to the limited nature of the ground reduction and also the aggressive nature of earlier demolishing the avialable evidence suggested had largely destroyed the 18th century buildings. The only surviving structural remains belonged either to the later 19th/20th century hospital buildings or remodelled/rebuilt areas of the 18th century structure (S5).