Erected in the 1830's its basic courtyard plan suggests that it was built on Sir Francis Bond Head's model plan published in the first annual report of the Poor Law Commissioners. A number of Head-plan workhouses were erected in Kent, but elsewhere in England Sampson Kempthorne's model were more usually adopted. In 1883 a Gothic-style Chapel was added on the north end of the building. There was a small group of hutted ward blocks to the south added during the Second World War and a number of other buildings erected after the site was transferred to the NHS in 1948. The chapel is GII listed(1).
The Workhouse was originally split over two sites on either side of Heath Road : the building on the north side for Boys & Girls and that on the south side possibly for Adults. The 1929-52 map shows a Nurses' Home and Laundry attached to the Infirmary (formerly the Adult Wing of the Workhouse). The Nurses' Home is now Kent Ambulance Service HQ and Training School. All other buildings associated with both the Workhouse and Linton Hospital, apart from the Chapel, have been demolished.

<1> RCHME, 1993, Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England: Compilation of Kent Hospitals Record Sheets (Unpublished document). SKE6841.

<2> RCHME edited by Harriet Richardson, 1998, English Hospitals 1660-1948 (Monograph). SKE6867.