Divine Providence Hospital facilities (1914-1975)
The Divine Providence Hospital, which was the greatest construction of the Misericórdia of Vila Real throughout the 19th century, would meet a new change in the beginning of the 20th century, due to its sale to the Municipality, with the building being occupied by the Town Council, and the Hospital transferred, in 1914, to the premises of the former College of Our Lady of the Rosary, a building meanwhile adapted for its new functions.
In an ancient picture of the Hospital, we see what should have been the structure of the College of Our Lady of the Rosary, a building consisting of two bodies, arranged in L, consisting of three floors with several windows. The top floor had a mansard typology (the French étage de comble). The receded body had its north wall topped by the House of the Morgados of Vila Cova and by St. Anne’s Chapel. After the former residence of the Morgados of Vila Cova was demolished, a new construction emerged, which together with the structure of the mentioned college will form a “U” shaped building with a noble façade.
The new body has an elegant façade facing north, with two floors and three sections, the central one more advanced in relation to the lateral ones. The west section, whose façade occupies the space where the House of the Morgados of Vila Cova once was, stands side by side with St. Anne’s Chapel. The ground floor has nine openings, three doors in the main body and three windows (of curved lintel) in each of the side sections, a scheme repeated in the top floor, this time with bay windows (also of curved lintel). The three sections of the façade are framed by overlapped Doric and Corinthian columns, topped by urns over acroters. The central section is topped by a pediment with a tympanum decorated with a shield, and the lateral sections by smooth parapets.
