The Sir William Turner Hospital at Kirkleatham overflowed to mark the completion of a £2.3m modernisation scheme

WHATEVER it was that paved the streets of London, the scrivening old city paid high interest for William Turner - Redcar lad made very good indeed. Born in 1615, he was apprenticed to a London wool merchant, became an alderman in 1660, Master of the Merchant Tailors Guild in 1661, Sheriff of London in 1663 and in 1669, like Dick Whittington, Lord Mayor.

Since much of the capital had been razed three years earlier by fire, the new Lord Mayor had plenty on his gold plate, both encouraging and subsidising the building of St Paul's Cathedral.

He also had friends in even higher places, including King Charles II - described in a Turner history as a "royal roisterer" - who once borrowed £1,600 from him.

Turner's ledgers, it is said, were headed "Laus deo" - God be praised - on every page, and Sir William may have felt the sentiment still more keenly when, in installments and without interest, the king finally cleared the slate.

Whatever his wealth and influence, however, the Lord Mayor - alms and the Mansion House - never forgot the old folk back home. In 1676 he endowed the Sir William Turner Hospital at Kirkleatham, two miles south of Redcar, which listed among its rules the injunction that residents must on no account look under their beds with a lighted candle.

Whatever might have lurked or leaked there, Sir William hadn't forgotten the Great Fire.

Last Sunday, exactly 325 years since the formal opening, a Founder's Day service in the magnificent chapel marked also the completion of a £2.3m redevelopment and modernisation scheme.

These days the rules extend to satellite television dishes, bottled gas and removing batteries from smoke alarms. The trustees also frown upon dogs and cars ("one person's animal friend may be another person's animal nuisance").

The prohibition about looking under the bed with a candle remains in place, not even for the bogey man.

The stout old building, covering three sides of a quadrangle, was a "hospital" only in the original sense that it offered hospitality. The Teesside A-Z, as helpful and as direct as ever, offers (Almshouses) in parentheses, and says everything in doing so. The original provision was a relief to ten men and ten women - over 63, Church of England, needy - with a school which offered education to 20 youngsters in similarly straitened circumstances.

Now the age limit has been reduced to 60, the creed restriction eased. "The need," says the trustees, "is likely to be financial and more likely to be social."

The school closed in the 1930s, its rooms part of the scheme that has doubled the size of most accommodation, from bedsits to "mini-apartments". Around 30 "almspersons" now live there, overseen by a warden and clerk. Whilst still not lawfully able to swing a cat, cage birds and goldfish are now permitted.

The chapel was built in 1742 by Sir William's great-nephew Cholmley, who also inspired the Free School, now Kirkleatham Old Hall Museum. Its architect was James Gibb, who also designed the London church of St Martin-in-the-Fields.

The centre-piece, an ornate chandelier bought for three guineas in the 1740s, was shrouded on Sunday because of the danger of dust damage from ongoing work. Those unaware of its existence might have supposed that the cloth held hundreds of balloons, ready to be released upon those below as they do in sundry places at Hogmanay.

The chapel overflowed, the service led by Christopher Greenwell, Kirkleatham's vicar, the address by the Bishop of Whitby, Robert Ladds. Basically it was Prayer Book evensong, written just 14 years before the Hospital was completed.

There were prayers for blessings on William Turner and "grace and saving help" to all others; Mr Greenwell urged that all might live together in peace and harmony - the Truner trustees are very hot on peace and harmony - the Bishop described Sir William as "one of the great movers and shakers of his time, a true renaissance man".

Since it was the Feast of St John the Baptist, he also essayed comparison between Benefactor and Baptist, both men of vision. As is customary on such occasions, we sang Christ is Made the Sure Foundation. Afterwards, the Bishop opened the new common room, there was a tea and a much needed raffle. "Many other almshouses have hidden resources," said Peter Sotheran, the trustees' chairman. "Here it is a case of what you see is what you get." On Sunday we got a memorable occasion; a poor do no longer.

Published: Saturday, June 30, 2001