The long spell of good weather lately has not been very conducive to research and writing indoors. I have made some progress, and have have begun revising the Suffolk page and did a bit of spring cleaning on the Aberdeenshire page. As always, any contributions of recent snaps, historic photos or drawings that could be added to the site would be very gratefully received.

May Queen Mystery

Lots of public buildings have foundations stones; these stones were usually laid by a local dignitary, marking the commencement of work. Usually they are inscribed with the name of the person laying the stone, the date, and often the names of the architect and builder. Recently I was sent photographs of Letchworth Hospital, including the one above ofthe foundation stone for the new wing built in 1921. It was the first time I had ever come across a foundation stone laid by the local May Queen. It also seemed unusual that the May Queen in question was not identified. I thought that I would easily find details in the local newspapers on the British Newspaper Archive, but have so far failed to turn up anything on the new wing or the May Queen. With a bit more digging, I found that the website Herts Memories lists all the May Queens from 1906 to 1966. The May Queen for 1920 was Edith Fox, later Mrs Stark, and I assume she was still in post in January 1921 when the foundation stone ceremony took place, before she was succeeded by Mary Cook (later Mrs Pound).

Letchworth Hospital was established in a converted house at the beginning of the First world War. Plans had been drawn up before the war for a purpose-built hospital to designs by Barry Parker, of Barry Parker & Raymond Unwin based in Letchworth. Fundraising had been proceeding in 1913, but the amount raised fell far short of the £6,000 target by July 1914 when war was declared. War-time conditions made the need for a local hospital even greater, as beds in the London hospitals, where people from Letchworth had gone for surgery, were reserved for the military, and the nearest cottage hospital at Hitchin could not be relied on to have free beds for patients from Letchworth.

A number of Letchworth homeowners came forward to offer up temporary accommodation. The hospital committee accepted an offer from Mr and Mrs Cockerell to take Pixmore House on lease for one year. At that time, many people believed that the war would not last long, so a year’s lease seemed adequate. Letchworth Temporary Hospital opened in October 1914. By March 1917, having extended the lease, the hospital’s board of management decided it should drop ‘Temporary’ from the hospital’s name. After the War a new fundraising scheme was launched to build a ‘peace memorial wing’. This was the extension for which the May Queen laid the foundation stone on 9 January 1921. Work was completed by November 1922. As well as not naming the May Queen, the stone did not record the names of the architect or builder, so as yet I am stumped. The plans may well have been provided by Barry Parker, who continued his association with the hospital into the 1930s. He was also the architect of Royston Hospital, about 12 miles north-east of Letchworth, built in 1920-4 to replace the earlier cottage hospital there.

Guy Dawber in Cockermouth

Over the last month or so I have been revising the Cumbria page. While doing some research to fill in gaps for one or two of the hospitals I was delighted to find that the cottage hospital at Cockermouth had been designed by one of the leading Arts & Crafts architects of the early twentieth century, Sir Guy Dawber. It was a relatively small commission.

Delight turned to dismay when I discovered that the building had been demolished relatively recently. It was damaged by the terrible floods that occurred in 2009, and a new hospital built further south. Part of the site has been redeveloped with retirement apartments (called Lancaster Court). The Guy Dawber hospital had been built in 1915, and by the late 1930s had 14 beds and two cots for children.

A Return to Margate

A highlight for me this month was a trip to Margate on the Kent coast. Apart from the delights of Dreamland, the Walpole Hotel, the Margate Bookshop and many other attractions, it was an opportunity to catch up on developments at the former Sea Bathing Hospital site.

The hospital closed in the 1990s when services transferred to Thanet District General. After a decade of standing empty planning permission was granted to convert the historic core into luxury apartments, and since then much of the former hospital has been adapted into housing.

New apartment blocks have been built in sympathy with the 1880s additions to the hospital, and some high-end town houses built facing the sea. For more on the history of the site there’s a separate post here: Margate’s Sea Bathing Hospital