Royal Victoria Patriotic Building

The Royal Victoria Patriotic Building is a large Victorian building in a "gothic" style combining Scottish Baronial and French Châteauesque. It is located off Trinity Road in Wandsworth, London. It was built in 1859 as the Royal Victoria Patriotic School, by popular subscription as an asylum for girls orphaned during the Crimean War. It is a Grade II* Listed Building designed by the architect Major Rohde Hawkins.ArchitectureExteriorThe building's architect was Major Rohde Hawkins (1821–84). It is made of yellow brick with York stone dressings. It consists of three storeys arranged around two courtyards separated by a central main hall. There is an additional single-storey court on the east side. The roof is steeply pitched with slate. The metal-framed windows are mullioned and transomed. The style is a combination of Scottish baronial, Jacobean and French Châteauesque architecture. There are five major towers (three at the front) with pyramidal rooves, and many smaller corner turrets (tourelles). The central tower at the front has a projecting frontispiece three storeys high; above it is a statue of St George and the Dragon in a niche.InteriorMuch of the interior detail has now been lost, so the interior is mostly quite plain; some rooms have surviving boarded rooves. A wallplate in the main hall has carved foliage. The main hall's roof is in three sections; it was painted by J.G. Crace.