Residence, refinery, workhouse, ward: The many faces of a 17th-century hospital, smashed to smithereens by the Luftwaffe

'Bristol changes fast with the times; but it may be hoped that the city… has seen its worst days of vandalism, and that St Peter’s Hospital may be spared with other lovely fragments of Bristol history.'

This is the final paragraph of a Country Life article, about the 300-year-old hospital published in 1906. The multi-gabled building was built on top of another one in 1607, originally as a statement-making home for Mayor Robert Aldworth who had made his fortune in sugar.

He spared no expense on the decoration, commissioning craftspeople to make intricately carved bargeboards, corbels and brackets, and stunning plasterwork ceilings and chimney pieces.

Twenty years after his death, however, in 1634, the property had gone from being one of Bristol's grandest homes to an industrial sugar refinery, and then to a Treasury mint. In 1698, the building was purchased by the Bristol Corporation of the Poor under whose ownership it wore the dubious crown of: One of England's First-Ever Workhouses. It was known, locally, as Mint Workhouse.

A whipping post and Bridewell stocks — reportedly never used — were erected near the windows as a threat to anyone unfortunate enough to end up incarcerated inside. Workers were required to spin cotton for 10½ hours a day in summer, and 9½ in winter. They were also 'educated to sobriety and brought up to delight in labour.'

By the middle of the 19th century, Aldworth had transformed, again, into St Peter's Hospital, doubling as a valuable isolation unit during a terrible cholera outbreak in the city. It had, at the dawn of the 20th century, metamorphosed into something else entirely: a meeting room for the Corporation of the Poor who met fortnightly. On other days, antiquarians and other interested people could pay a nominal entrance fee to wander around the curious old building. And had it not been for the Second World War, it would likely still be some kind of tourist attraction to this day.

In November 1940, the Luftwaffe began a series of devastating raids over the port city. In one of these, a bomb was dropped directly on the former hospital and the entire structure and all its layers of Bristolian history disappeared.

There is now a cycle path that weaves its way through the site.

The Country Life Image Archive contains more than 150,000 images documenting British culture and heritage, from 1897 to the present day. To search and purchase images directly from the Image Archive, please register here.