This year, as Worcester’s Infirmary building on Castle Street, Worcester reaches its 250th anniversary we would like to take a closer look at Anthony Keck the architect who designed it; who he was, and what else he designed.
Although it closed as a hospital in 2002 the beautiful building designed by Anthony Keck and opened to patients in 1771 is now owned by the University of Worcester. In normal times the public can visit a small museum there in association with the George Marshall Medical Museum, celebrating the hospital’s history which includes photographs and plans of the original building. Keck’s design was chosen for Worcester Royal Infirmary from a selection of competitive entries, a couple of which are available to view at the Worcestershire Archives. His design was very similar to Luke Singleton’s design of Gloucester Infirmary which had opened in 1756. Construction of the infirmary to Keck’s plans began in 1767 on what had once been an artichoke field, and which was purchased especially for the building of the infirmary. It was built from Bath stone and bricks made on nearby Pitchcroft, now Worcester’s racecourse and the completed building was opened in 1771.
Keck designed several other things in the local area. His designs were mainly for private houses but his connection with influential local families, may have led to more significant jobs especially in Worcestershire including the Worcester Infirmary building. And like the Worcester Infirmary, many of his creations are now listed by Historic England. For instance he worked for Revd Dr Treadway Nash, Worcestershire’s historian, in Bevere, and Ham Court in Upton-Upon-Severn. He also designed Upton’s Cupola to beautify the top of the church tower and Old St Martin’s church in Worcester’s Cornmarket. Old St. Martin's Church, Worcester was built in 1768, having taken four years, and cost £2,215, and is now Grade II*. In 1770 Keck worked in Upton to remodel St. Peter and St. Paul's which was Upton-Upon-Severn’s parish church and it’s oldest building. He designed its famed lantern and copper cupola known locally as the "Pepperpot" which is now Grade II* listed.
Keck was born in about 1726 in Randwick, Gloucestershire, to a family of Yeoman farmers in the Cheltenham area. He was possibly apprenticed to a builder-architect in the area. At the time of his marriage to Mary Palmer, in Lugwardine, Herefordshire on 29th June 1761 he was described as a builder. Keck and his wife settled in Kings Stanley and had two children, Thomas and Sarah. He was given the Freedom of Worcester in 1768 possibly for his work on the Old St Martin’s church.
Anthony Keck, was known as a mason and architect with a busy practice. He had workshops at Kings Stanley in Gloucestershire where he lived and between 1770 and 1790 he was possibly the leading architect in the three counties of Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire. He produced country houses with plain exteriors and elegant interiors of Adamsian derivation, many with bowed wings. Nicholas Kingsley states that Keck like many other architects ‘worked extensively to tried and trusted formulae’. His houses tended to use a central block with pediment bay windows and few details.
His finest house is considered to be Penrice Castle, Glamorgan, but he also worked on extensions, alterations and rebuilding of a number of country houses, and added details such as orangeries and stable blocks to existing houses.
His work is associated with many privately-owned buildings and some public works:
· Barnsley Park, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, redecoration work by Keck in 1780 for James Musgrave, who inherited a baronetcy in 1812. Grade I listed.
· Barrington Grove, Middle Road, Barrington, Gloucestershire. Grade II listed, The manor house for Barrington village, Barrington Grove, the manor-house of Little Barrington manor, was rebuilt in the late 18th century, probably after 1779, possibly with Anthony Keck as the architect but incorporates parts of an older house. The house is of ashlar, and is two storied with attics, sash windows and six Doric pilasters. It was redesigned in the nineteenth century.
· Beech House, Church Street, Stroud, Gloucestershire. Early C18, refronted c1770 by Anthony Keck in Flemish bond red brick. Now Grade II listed.
· Bevere House, Claines, Worcestershire. Grade II* house remodelled by Keck 1765 for Dr Treadwell Russell Nash, the county historian, who bought the estate at Bevere shortly after his marriage in 1758 and lived there during the latter half of the Eighteenth Century.
· Bowden Hall, also known as Creed's Place, today this is the Ramada Hotel Gloucester, Upton St Leonards, Gloucestershire. Keck is thought to have designed the first-floor veranda on the south elevation, in 1770.
· Burghill Court, Herefordshire, built by Benjamin Biddulph who died before completion in the late 18th century, designed by Anthony Keck.
· Canon Frome Court, Ledbury, England, Herefordshire. Dated 1786 and attributed to Anthony Keck for Richard Cope Hopton, replacing an earlier house. It is now Grade II listed.
· Coytrahen House, Bridgend, Wales. The park and gardens were created during the ownership of John Popkin, who also built the house in the 1770s. It has a 170ft Palladian frontage a three storey central block and two pavillion wings. The Great Western Railway later cut a swathe across the park, the house was a red cross hospital in the First World War, abandoned in 1925 and sold 1946.
· Ferney Hill, Ferney, Dursley, Gloucestershire. Grade II listed building. Former large country house, now local authority residential home built 1767-8 by Anthony Keck from Limestone ashlar and painted brick. Two-storey with attic centre, former stables and coach house to rear and tall 15-pane ground floor sashes flanking central doorway with moulded architrave and dentil cornice over on console brackets.
· Flaxley Abbey, Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, formerly a Cistercian monastery. The family was created as the Crawley-Boevey Baronets in 1784 and about this time the house was substantially rebuilt, to Keck’s designs including a new front. It is Grade I listed.
· Forthampton Court, Gloucestershire. Keck designed the former stable-block in about 1788 for Rev. James Yorke. It is now Grade II listed.
· Ham Court, Upton-upon-Severn, Worcestershire. This was built in 1772 for Mr. E. G. B. Martin, Lord of the Manor, at the extreme south of the parish. It was demolished in 1926.
· Highgrove House, Tetbury, Gloucestershire, now the home of the Prince of Wales. This was perhaps Keck’s last building, built between 1796 and 1798 in a Georgian neo-classical design.
· Iscoed, Carmarthenshire. Today a ruin, but designed by Keck for William Mansel and built in 1772. Described by Pevsner as ‘one of the most important Georgian houses in Wales’.
· Kentchurch Court, Grosmont Community, Monmouthshire. A medieval deer park with some late C18 landscaping associated with a country house belonging to the Scudamore family. The estate passed to John Scudamore, who in 1756 married Sarah Westcombe, an heiress. In 1795, the year before he died, he commissioned John Nash to alter the house. A substantial internal modernisation was undertaken after 1773 to designs by Anthony Keck. The House is now Grade II*.
· Longworth Hall, Lugwardine, Hereford. Built in 1788 to Keck’s design, it is now Grade II listed and used as a hotel.
· Margam Park, Glamorgan. 1793 saw the completion of the Orangery, designed by Anthony Keck.
· Moccas Court, near the village of Moccas in Herefordshire, was built in 1775–81 by Anthony Keck for Sir George Armyand Cornewall to replace the existing Manor house. The house is grade I listed. He also probably built the grade II* listed Home Farm House with workshops and out buildings, and barn 1783-4.
· Newton Court, Dixton, Monmouthshire. Built for George Griffin in about 1798-1802 possibly to a design by Anthony Keck who died 1797, but built posthumously.
· Penrice Castle, Glamorgan, built in the 1770s by Keck for Thomas Mansel Talbot (1747–1813) of Margam and Penrice. This is Grade I listed and among the finest country houses in Wales.
· Ryeford Double Lock, at Ryeford, Stonehouse, Gloucestershire, for the Stroudwater Canal Company in 1779. It is now Grade II listed.
· Slebech Park, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire. The new house was built in 1776 for John Symmons, formerly of Llanstinan, who became the second husband of Anne Barlow, although he had to sell it just 2 years later due to financial difficulties.
· Church of St Nicholas, Standish, Gloucestershire, Now Grade I listed with box pews dating from 1764 by Anthony Keck.
· Stratford Park, Stroud, Gloucestershire. Remodelled and extended to the front (south) in the 1780s by Anthony Keck for Nathaniel Winchcombe. Now Grade II listed.
· Underdown, Ledbury, Herefordshire. A small country house Grade II listed, rebuilt in 1780 by Keck.
· Wormington Grange, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, a south-facing house similar to Bowden Hall. A Grade II* listed country house built in the 1770s of stone with a slate roof, with full-height bow windows.
Anthony Keck died in 1797 at the age of 70, with some of his designs being used in construction even after his death. He was buried at the village church in Kings Stanley where he had lived with his family at Beech House, the home he partly designed for himself and his family. In his will, he left his wife an estate in Temple Guiting, and left money for his granddaughter Mary and his son. Anthony Keck is outlived by the buildings he created in his lifetime, including Worcester Infirmary, which survive for us all to enjoy.
References:
https://www.british-history.ac.uk
https://historicengland.org.uk/
http://www.llangynwydlowercommunitycouncil.co.uk/Images.htm
https://www.parksandgardens.org/places/
https://peoplepill.com/people/anthony-keck-1/
Historic Building Non-Technical Record Report: The Former
Worcester Royal Infirmary, Castle Street, Worcester 2018, explorethepast.co.uk
Worcestershire place names, by Anthony Poulton-Smith
Upton in the Severn Valley, by Upton-upon-Severn Festival Committee
(Researched December 2020-February 2021)
Anthony Keck’s Life and Work Timeline
· 1726 Born in Randwick, Gloucestershire.
· 1761 Marriage to Mary Palmer, Lugwardine, Herefordshire.
· 1764 Church of St Nicholas, Standish, Gloucestershire (box pews).
· 1765 Bevere House, Claines, Worcestershire. Remodelled.
· 1765 Burghill Court, Herefordshire.
· 1767-8 Ferney Hill, Ferney, Dursley, Gloucestershire.
· 1768 Old St. Martin's Church, Worcester.
· 1768 Freedom of Worcester, Worcestershire.
· 1770 Beech House, Church Street, Stroud, Gloucestershire.
· 1770 Bowden Hall, Upton St Leonards, Gloucestershire.
· 1770 St. Peter and St. Paul's church, Upton-Upon-Severn, Worcestershire.
· 1771 Worcester Royal Infirmary, Worcester.
· 1772 Ham Court, Upton-upon-Severn, Worcestershire.
· 1772 Iscoed, Carmarthenshire.
· 1773 Kentchurch Court, Grosmont Community, Monmouthshire.
· 1770s Coytrahen House, Bridgend, Wales.
· 1770s Penrice Castle, Glamorgan.
· 1770s Wormington Grange, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire.
· 1776 Slebech Park, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire.
· 1779 Barrington Grove, Middle Road, Barrington, Gloucestershire.
· 1779 Ryeford Double Lock, at Ryeford, Stonehouse, Gloucestershire.
· 1780 Barnsley Park, Cirencester, Gloucestershire.
· 1780 Underdown, Ledbury, Herefordshire.
· 1780s Stratford Park, Stroud, Gloucestershire.
· 1788 Longworth, Hereford.
· 1775-81 Moccas Court, near the village of Moccas in Herefordshire,
· 1783-4 Moccas Court Home Farm House with workshops, outbuildings and barn 1783-4.
· 1784 Flaxley Abbey, Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire.
· 1786 Canon Frome Court, Ledbury, England, Herefordshire.
· 1788 Forthampton Court, Gloucestershire.
· 1793 Margam Park, Glamorgan.
· 1797 Died at home at Beech House, Kings Stanley, Gloucestershire.
· 1796-98 Highgrove House, Tetbury, Gloucestershire. Completed posthumously.
· 1798-1802 Newton Court, Dixton, Monmouthshire. Built posthumously.
