Over the past few months the Northumberland pagehas been thoroughly revised and expanded. The page covers hospitals within the current county of Northumberland, there is a separate pages for Tyne & Weir that covers Newcastle. Historic maps of the sites have been added in, and short accounts of the history of each building added, mostly based on the reports written for the Royal Commission’s Hospital Survey carried out in the 1990s. At that time many more of the pre-NHS hospitals were still in use, and others still standing. Although not all the historic hospitals of Northumberland have been lost, a great many have been demolished. The Royal Commission hospital files include now rare record photography of demolished sites. They can be found at Historic England Archive, based in Swindon, and can be seen by the public.
Berwick Infirmary, photographed by Bill Harrison in 2017, from Geograph
There are now twelve NHS hospitals in Northumberland with in-patient facilities: Berwick Infirmary; Blyth Community Hospital; Alnwick Infirmary; Haltwhistle War Memorial Hospital; North Tyneside General Hospital; Hexham General Hospital; Rothbury Community Hospital; Wansbeck General Hospital; Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital, Cramlington; St George’s Park, Morpeth; Ferndene, Prudhoe and Northgate Hospital, Morpeth. (There are other clinics and health centres that treat out-patients.)
Alnwick Infirmary, photographed in 2011 by Michael Dibb from Geograph
Historically Newcastle provided the main hospital services for the county, with large teaching and specialist hospitals. Most of the population was concentrated in the city, the rest of the large county having a scattered population resulting in a network of relatively small hospitals. There have been at least thirty-five hospitals in Northumberland outside Newcastle in the past, including workhouses that would have had small infirmaries for the sick. That number does not include private nursing homes, which are generally not included on the historic-hospitals website (although I have slowly been adding ones that come to my attention). There are various reasons for their general exclusion, but mostly it is because they tended to occupy converted buildings, and the main focus of the historic-hospitals site is to explore the design of purpose-built hospitals.
Berwick Workhouse from the OS Town Plan published in 1852, reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland CC-BY (NLS). The early ordnance survey maps often include ground plans of public buildings, such as hospitals.
The large reduction in the number of hospitals now part of the National Health Service reflects the way in-patient care has developed, with patients spending less time in hospital and more procedures being done in out-patient clinics or day-care units. Plans for post-war reconstruction and the need for some form of national health service were addressed during the Second World War. A national survey of hospitals was commenced in 1942, that was published in 1946. It covered most hospitals but excluded those for mental illnesses or disabilities, and few private nursing homes. The survey, together with the recommendations made in the published reports, laid the foundations for the administrative organisation of the NHS.
The report on the hospitals in the North East of England did not paint a rosy picture. The general acute hospitals were mostly found to be out-of-date, too small, and on sites that did not allow for expansion. Out-patient departments were particularly poor, inconvenient and cramped. Even then it was recognised that the demands on out-patient departments had steadily increased in step with medical progress, and would continue to do so ‘departments that were once regarded with pride are now recognised as hopelessly inadequate’. The rise in specialisms was also impacting on the problem, as new clinics had to somehow be shoe-horned into existing buildings. In those days there were no appointment systems in place, which only added to the difficulties. The survey recognised that some improvements had been made before the war, but many more plans had been set aside in 1939.
Marshall Meadows, near Berwick upon Tweed, now a country house hotel, was a hospital between 1939 and 1958. Photographed by Rod Allday in 2009, from Geograph
About 23 hospitals in the county of Northumberland were transferred to the NHS in 1948. These were nine cottage hospitals, three of the five former workhouses in the county, five out of the eight infectious diseases hospitals, three sanatoria (for tuberculosis), two smallpox hospitals, and one maternity hospital. They fell within the administrative area of the Newcastle Regional Hospital Board, a huge area that stretched across to Cumbria and down to Sunderland, Teeside, County Durham and parts of North Yorkshire. Day-to-day administration was carried out by 33 Hospital Management Committees. This remained the case until the 1974 reorganisation of the NHS which saw the introduction of smaller area health authorities. In the early 1990s most of the hospitals transferred in 1948 were still either in use or at least still standing. Many have been demolished relatively recently. Only Berwick and Alnwick Infirmaries continue in some of their original buildings to this day.
Ovenstone Hospital opened in 1896. It was a small infectious diseases hospital built on rising ground about two miles to the north of Pittenweem, in the East Neuk of Fife. It was established by the St Andrew’s District Committee of Fife’s County Council, and designed by the local St Andrew’s architect David Henry. The total cost was around £2,500 including furnishing. [Dundee Courier, 18 Jan. 1896, p.5.] The two-storey building at the centre provided accommodation for the nursing and domestic staff as well as the main kitchen and stores. The wards occupied the wings on either side and are set at right-angles to it. Each ward was on the standard pattern with central duty room and a small ward at each end.
Ovenstone Hospital from the 25-inch OS map revised in 1912, reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland CC-BY (NLS)
Having been completed and furnished by the end of 1895, opening was delayed because of dampness. On the instruction the architect, fires had been kept lit in order to get the rooms dried through the latter part of January. Dr Pirie of Pittenweem was appointed visiting medical attendant, and the first patient was admitted in February 1896: a farm servant from the Mount Melville district suffering from scarlet fever. [East Fife Record, 21 Feb. 1896, p.4; 20 March 1896, p.4.]
The hospital opened the year before the Public Health Act of 1897 which made the provision of hospitals for infectious diseases by local authorities mandatory. The burden on the rates of contributing to the upkeep of permanent hospitals was often a bone of contention amongst local councillors. The Provost of Anstruther argued against the Town Council contributing to the Ovenstone Hospital and thereby having the use of it for infectious cases in the town. He favoured the purchase of a ‘small iron hospital’ which might be bought for £40 or £50, put up and taken down whenever suitable, and stored in the old washing-house when not in use. [East of Fife Record, 28 Feb. 1896, p.6.]
As well as the central administrative block and the two flanking ward wings, a detached block to the south accommodated the ambulance and disinfector. There was probably a mortuary in this building too. The architect had visited a hospital in Whitehaven, in the north of England, with the County Medical Officer, Dr Nasmyth, on the strength of which a Reck’s disinfector was acquired for the hospital. The ambulance carriage that conveyed patients to the hospital was made by Holmes of Derby.
An extension of the hospital was carried out in 1910-11 for which David Henry was again the architect, the hospital was closed for a while during building works. The original horse-drawn Haynes’ ambulance was still in occasional use in the early 1930s, although by then it was felt to be something of a museum piece. [Fife County Council Annual Report, 1933, p.90.]
By 1942 Ovenstone Hospital had 16 beds, the patients being under the care of one of the local general practitioners. By this date the hospital was judged to be in need of some modernisation: there was no electric light, the wards being lit by oil lamps and heating by an open fires that also heating a pipe running round the edge of the ward. The hospital was not connected to mains sewage but to a cesspool in the grounds. The cooking arrangements were also not up to scratch. It was therefore not deemed suitable to continue as an infectious diseases hospital after the War, but with its substantial buildings, pleasant situation and garden, might be adapted as a home for the elderly and infirm or ‘other similar purpose’. [Department of Health for Scotland, Scottihs Hospitals Survey Report on the South-Eastern Region, 1946, p.84.]
Paraffin lamps were still the only source of lighting in the wards in 1947. The County Council appealed to the Scottish Secretary of State to have electricity installed, and the Dundee Courier seized the opportunity to publish a photograph of a young nurse carrying two oil lamps with the caption ‘Lady of the Lamps’. [Dundee Courier, 21 Jan. 1947, p.3.] Around this time the hospital accommodated convalescent children. It did not transfer to the NHS in 1948, but remained a convalescent home run by Fife County Council. In the 1960s it developed into a residential school for children with a range of additional support needs. Initially it was known as Ovenstone Children’s Home, and by the mid-1970s as Ovenstone Residential School. It was still operating in the early 1990s.
Ovenstone Hospital on the OS map revised in 1968 CC-BY (NLS)
The building to the east of the original hospital buildings was added some time in the later 1950s or early ’60s, perhaps as a classroom.
Graylingwell Hospital, admin block, photographed June 1992
Graylingwell Hospital, to the north of Chichester, opened in July 1897. It was originally built as the West Sussex County Asylum to ease overcrowding at the main county asylum at Haywards Health. The hospital was for ‘pauper lunatics’. The plans were drawn up by Sir Arthur W. Blomfield and Sons in 1895 and building work began in May of that year. The building contractors were Messrs James Langley & Co. of Crawley, and the estimated cost of construction £114,669.
Site of Graylingwell Hospital, from the one-inch OS map revised in 1893, reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Scotland, CC-BY (NLS)
The site was some way to the north of Chichester, just to the east of Chichester Barracks, formerly occupied by Graylingwell farm. The farmhouse, steading and the ‘grayling well’ were retained for the use of the hospital.
Former Graylingwell hospital, 25-inch OS map revised 1896, CC-BY (NLS)
The main complex was designed on an échelon plan of the standard type with the administration block at the centre to the north, the recreation hall, kitchen and stores at the centre and the patients’ pavilions arranged in an arc, off the outer corridor. It was a plan that allowed the patients’ blocks each to have an unobstructed southerly view. Most of the blocks are of two storeys. A chapel was provided to the north of the administration block and a separate hospital for infectious diseases was built to the north-east near the farm buildings and the old Graylingwell house.
Central south elevation of the former hospital, June 1992
The main hospital buildings are in Queen Anne style, the administration block the most ornate with its grey stone dressings and central pedimented bay. The main entrance was given classical details on the door surround, surmounted by a broken segmental pediment, over that is a Venetian window, and up again to an oeuil de boeuf window in the pediment. A clock tower sits at the apex of the roof. Within the matron had rooms on the first floor above the entrance.
Graylingwell Hospital, one of the patients’ pavilionson the east side of the main complex, photographed June 1992
The administration block was one of the most attractive blocks on the site, but the patients’ blocks were also pleasing, though not so highly embellished. The accommodation within the patients’ blocks followed a ‘gallery ward’ arrangement, the gallery being the main day space for patients, furnished with books, papers and games. The dormitories had polished pitch pine floors, were furnished with iron bedsteads, with wire mesh spring mattresses (‘Lawson Tait’ mesh), hair mattresses and bolsters, and white quilts. They were overlooked by one or two attendant’s rooms wit glass panelled doors looking into the dormitory. Single rooms off the dormitories provided for restless or noisy patients. Connecting the various sections of the main complex were the corridors and beneath these ‘great subways, through which a man may walk’.
Patients’ pavilion, south end of the main complex
To either side of the administration block were workshops, the boiler house, laundry and the mortuary. If they were able, the male patients spent their days either in the workshops, engaged in work such as shoemaking, tailoring, or plumbing, in the gardens or on the farm. Women worked in the kitchen, laundry or work-rooms. The patients’ pavilions were arranged around the edge of the semi-circular complex. They were all constructed of red brick with grey stone quoins and grey slate hipped roofs. There were four pavilions to the west and five to the east. This would suggest that the female side was the larger east side, as female patients generally out-numbered the male patients. When the asylum opened, the local newspaper carried a lengthy report on the buildings, noting how such hospitals had changed for the better over the last sixty years: ‘Every effort is made to abolish the ‘institution’ and to establish a “home” or at worst a “hospital”.’ [The Observer and West Sussex Recorder, 28 July 1897.]
Medical Superintendent’s House
The elegant Medical Superintendent’s house, situated just to the south-west of the complex, was attached to the perimeter link corridor by its own private corridor, like an umbilical cord. The two-storey and attic house was not much smaller than the whole of the administration block and was similarly detailed. The first medical superintendent was Dr Kidd, the head of a staff of around 95. The assistant medical oficer was Dr Steen. Miss Baines was the first matron; Mr Newman the steward and clerk; Mr Newman the head attendant.
Recreation Hall
At the centre of the complex, behind the administration block, were the communal service areas, such as the kitchen and stores, and the large recreation hall. The latter was next to the main kitchen and also served as the dining hall. There was a gallery at one end and a stage, complete with orchestra pit, at the other. The proscenium arch is ornamented simply with pairs of half-fluted pilasters resting on high plinths which flank the stage. The Observer and West Sussex Recorder noted the plans for dances, theatrical entertainments and concerts to be held in the ‘magnificent theatre’ during the winters, and out-door entertainment once a week in the summer with the Asylum band.
Graylingwell Hospital Chapel
The chapel has quite a different character. Queen Anne gave way to simple Early English gothic, and red brick was replaced by flint. It is a chapel of great charm, with the air of a small parish church. It comprises a four-bay nave with side aisles screened by a pointed-arched arcade. The side aisles are lit by single lancets and the clerestorey above by quatrefoils. The west wall had two pairs of lancets containing stained glass. The chancel comprised a short choir and sanctuary with a mosaic altar-piece. The east window was a triple lancet with fine figurative glass by Heaton, Butler and Bayne of London. When the asylum first opened, all able patients attended chapel every day for morning prayer.
Stained-glass window in the chapelat the west end.
Graylingwell chapel
The photograph of the chapel above shows the twin entrances that were typical of asylum chapels, allowing separate entrances for men and women, and with a room to the side that could be used to remove a patient from the service if they were unwell, disturbed or noisy.
Side elevation of Graylingwell chapel, photographed in 2005 after the hospital’s closure
Chapel interior, looking towards the west end.
Chapel interior, from the choir, looking towards the entrance at the east end
The long drive up to the entrance was planted with lime trees to created an avenue, while a separate road provided access for deliveries. The layout of the gardens and grounds were planned by Mr Lloyd of the Surrey County Asylum at Brookwood, and were laid out by the head gardener at Graylingwell, a Mr Peacock, with the help of 22 workmen. Creepers were planted to soften the buildings.
former infectious diseases hospital at Graylingwell
The separate infectious diseases hospital to the north-east of the site comprised a single-storey, symmetrical, south-facing ward block, with sanitary annexes to the rear, joined by a single-storey link corridor to a two-storey north block. Again, it is constructed of red brick but the decorative elements are even more sparse, although it does have two rather jolly roof ventilators on the ward block and also a pleasing porch come glazed verandah at the centre.
Graylingwell Hospital, nurses’ home
In the 1930s a nurses’ home was built to the north-east of the chapel. This rather austere, three-storey, 13-bay, hip-roofed block had its appearance greatly improved by the rampant vegetation which covered most of the south front. Stone quoins could just be seen, peeping from under the foliage. At the same time as the nurses’ home was built, two blocks were added to the south-east of the site. The more northerly and larger had become the Richmond Day Hospital by the early 1990s. It was a symmetrical E-plan, two-storey block. The long, main south front had verandas on either side of the central projecting bay, stylistically blending in well with the original patients’ pavilions.
Richmond Day Hospital
Graylingwell Hospital from the 25-inch OS map revised in 1932 CC-BY (NLS)
The block to the south of of the day hospital, and about half its side, was named Kingsmead in the 1990s. It was similar in style to the Richmond Day Hospital. Another contemporary building was named Summersdale, situated on the north-west side of the site. It had a foundation stone, inscribed with the date 29 October 1931.
Graylingwell Hospital, pavilion on the north-east side of the hospital complex, photographed in 2005 after closure.
There were some post-war additions to the site, mostly on a small scale, such as the day-rooms added to the patients’ pavilion on the north-east side of the complex (see above). This looks to have been an addition dating to the 1960s, and is more stylish than usual. As yet I have found no information about the work, but I would guess that it was designed in house by the South West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board’s architect’s department. The architect to the Board from about 1956 to 1968 was Richard Mellor, F.R.I.B.A., formerly architect to the Leeds Regional Hospital Board (where he was succeeded by P. B. Nash). In 1968 Mellor was succeed as architect to the South West Metropolitan Regional Board by B. W. East .
Graylingwell Hospital, patients’ pavilions in 2005.
By the 1990s although closure was mooted, the grounds were still well maintained and the larger elements of the original planting, namely the trees and shrubs, were still very much in evidence. There was a mixed variety of species with particularly fine trees around the Medical Superintendent’s house and the administration block and chapel, where there was a mixture of evergreens and deciduous trees, including the obligatory Yew tree by the chapel.
Since closure a large housing development has been built on the site, incorporating and adapting some of the old hospital buildings: the main patients’ pavilions of the original complex and the administration block (the Clock House) have been detached from their ancillary buildings and converted into flats, while infill housing has been built in place of the recreation hall, kitchens, workshops, laundry etc. The chapel has been retained and the water tower, medical superintendent’s house, and parts of the isolation hospital. Summersdale House is now the Harold Kidd Unit, for the care of the elderly, those with dementia and other mental health conditions, but the Richmond Day Hospital and the Kingsmead block have been demolished. Further mental health facilities have been provided to the south of the site in the Centurion Mental Health Centre and Jupiter House built in 2001.
Many of the pages on the historic hospitals website, particularly those for some of the counties in England, have nothing more than a list of sites. Towards the end of last year I began the process of revising those pages. In November I received a query about the location of Sherborne Isolation Hospital. The local museum and library had been unable to help, so I turned my attention to the Dorset page. With the help of digimap and the National Library of Scotland’s map pages online I managed to find Sherbonre’s isolation hospital, to the north-west of the town off the Marston Road, on the site now occupied by Barton Farmhouse.
Sherborne Isolation Hospital, OS map 1927 (CC-BY NLS)
As yet I have found little else about the hospital – from the map evidence alone it must have been built some time between 1903 and 1927, and was built by the Urban District Council, but it’s a start. At the moment I am just keen to add as much to the page as quickly as I can, so further research will have to wait. If anyone is interested, there may well be more information in the building file at Historic England Archives (the reference is BF 100425).
It was interesting to see how many hospitals that had still been part of the NHS in the early 1990s have since closed. Quite a few have been demolished either completely or partially. The postcard of the Royal National Sanatorium at the top of this post was still the Royal National Hospital until the ’90s when it was converted into retirement apartments. The Shelley Road Branch of the Royal Victoria and West Hampshire Hospital has been largely demolished, as has the former Bridport General Hospital, replaced by a new community hospital in the ’90s. More recently, the remaining sections of the Christchurch Union Workhouse (part of Christchurch Hospital) were demolished around 2015.
Part of Christchurch Hospital, demolished c.2015
The large Royal Naval Hospital on Portland has also mostly now disappeared, the former sick quarters went around 2005 to create Foylebank Way, retirement housing. Only one pavilion of the hospital has been retained, adapted to form the present Portland Community Hospital.
The former Portland Hospital, photographed in the early 1990s.
Another loss is the former Princess Christian Hospital and Sanatorium in Weymouth. This striking building was put up at the beginning of the twentieth century, designed by local architects Crickmay & Son. It was taken over as a military hospital during the First World War, and when it was returned to civilian use it, merged with Weymouth’s Royal Hospital on School Street and was renamed Weymouth and District Hospital. Various extensions were built in the 1920s and ’30s, and after bomb damage during the Second World War, the out-patients’ block had to be rebuilt. In 1998 the site was cleared to make way for a new community hospital.
Princess Christian Hospital, postcard c.1905
There are some surviving historic hospitals in Dorset. A few still in the NHS estate, others adapted to new uses. My own personal favourite is probably the former St Anne’s Sanatorium in Poole, designed by the Scottish architect Robert Weir Shultz and built in 1909-12 as the seaside branch of Holloway Sanatorium.
St Anne’s Hospital, photographed in the early 1990s.
St Anne’s remains in hospital use, and continues as a mental health facility. Google street view allows you to take a virtual walk round the outside of the main building. The facing bricks look much redder than in the photograph above. There is also a new wing – opened in 2013 – that respects the Edwardian building in scale and materials without being a pastiche.
The Dorset page now looks a lot more interesting, there are photos and maps, and some snippets of history. That will have to do for the time being, while I get on with revising some of the other pages. I have enjoyed my virtual tour of Dorset, though saddened to find so many buildings have been lost. As always, I welcome any additions to the site if you have photographs that you are willing to share.
View of Portree Hospital from across the bay, photographed by John Allan in March 2010
In the early 1960s the NHS built a new hospital at Portree and substantially enlarged and extended the Mackinnon Memorial Hospital at Broadford. There was considerable controversy surrounding these projects at the time. From a cost and efficiency point of view, the Northern Regional Hospital Board wanted just one central hospital and Broadford was their preferred location being nearer to the mainland and therefore easier for visiting consultant specialists. But Skye is a large island community, with its population fairly evenly spread between north a south, making travel on narrow roads in bad weather less than ideal, especially for maternity cases. Even today, the journey by car from the far north of the island to the bridge that links Skye to the mainland in the south can take around two hours, in good weather during the summer. Until the mid-1990s you would have to add in the time for a ferry crossing to the mainland, as the bridge was only opened in 1995.
The two new hospital buildings still resulted in a reduced and rationalised service, as four hospitals had been transferred to the National Health Service in 1948, whereas today just two are in operation. The new hospital at Portree replaced the old fever hospital there and prompted the closure of the John Martin Hospital at Uig (also in the north of the island). The small Gesto Hospital, at Edinbane continued in use until 2007, having staved off successive attempts at closure from the 1990s.
Replacing the hospitals on Skye with a single new one had been proposed during the Second World War when the existing hospitals had been surveyed in 1942 as part of the groundwork leading up to establishing a national health service after the war. This national survey of hospital buildings was undertaken by pairs of medical professionals who were assigned one of five regions. Questionnaires were sent out to all the hospitals providing basic information about the number of beds available, the type of patients catered for, etc. The Survey was published in 1946, and fairly recently the Wellcome Library has digitised the reports which can be accessed online either via the Wellcome or on the Internet Archive.
The Report for the Northern Region suggested that Portree might be the most suitable location for this single new hospital for the island. But no further progress was made either immediately after the war or in the early years following the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948. When the Northern Regional Hospital Board decided to build a new hospital it favoured Broadford over Portree, as not only was it more convenient for consultants from the mainland, but a hospital located there could also serve parts of the adjacent mainland. The local Board of Management and the local general practitioners were brought on side, and the proposal was supported by the Department of Health. However, when it was announced to the public in 1951 there was a local outcry. The Secretary of State for Scotland, James Stuart, promised the local Inverness MP, Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton, that in view of the strong feeling in Skye, he would see that no final decision on the location of the new hospital would be made without ‘direct consultation with local people’.
Large-scale OS map surveyed 1965, reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland (CC-BY) NLS
Matters stalled following the economic restrictions imposed after 1951, with the outbreak of the Korean War and Britain’s support of the U.S.A. leading to funds being redirected from welfare to re-armament. The question of a new hospital for Skye was not revived until 1954 when fresh proposals for an addition of 12 beds to the Broadford hospital was put forward to the Department of Health by the Chairman of the Northern Regional Hospital Board. Although the Department was supportive, there remained the issue of the Secretary of State’s promise about local consultation.
How that consultation might be done was discussed between the Regional Board and the Department’s officers in the Spring of 1956. The limited funding and a general lack of clear understanding between the Department in Edinburgh and the Regional Board in Inverness meant that no further progress was made. In 1958 an internal inquiry was held, the Department being reconciled to the need to go to exceptional lengths to placate local feeling. The compromise reached was to run two hospitals, with a new one at Portree and an extension to the one in Broadford, much to the irritation of the Regional Board who only gave up on their wish for a single, larger hospital, with considerable reluctance.
The Regional Architect, David Polson Hall, was put in charge of the design and planning of the new buildings. Polson Hall was originally from Stonehaven and had studied architecture in Aberdeen in the 1920s before becoming chief assistant to the architect R. Leslie Rollo in 1931. In 1954, Polson Hall and colleagues at the Regional Board visited the RIBA Exhibition on the Design of Health Buildings. The two projects on Skye proceeded in tandem. Estimates for the Portree hospital were received in 1961, but were higher than the amount available so revisions to the plans had to be made. Final working drawings were not completed until May 1962, and work finally got under way in March 1963.
It is difficult not to see Portree hospital as old-fashioned, in architectural style if not in plan. It is a small L-shaped, single-storey and attic building set into the hillside. A contemporary photograph (see below) taken when the hospital was opened makes it appear over-scaled compared with the neighbouring houses, despite its smallness as a hospital. The construction was traditional, in synthetic stone and brickwork, roughcast with pitched roof finished in green slates. The long, west side of the hospital contained the in-patient accommodation, with wards and a day room on the west side of the long axial corridor commanding a fine view over the bay (see plan below). The east side of the corridor had ancillary rooms: WCs, bath, sterilising room, labour room, stores and Matron’s office. The main entrance was on this side, leading to a waiting area and staff office. There were twelve beds in all, half of which were for maternity cases. The largest ward had four beds, the others were three twin rooms and two singles.
View of Portree Hospital from across the estuary just after it opened. From The Hospital,September 1965
The shorter wing to the north housed a small out-patients’ clinic, with a separate entrance and waiting area. The hospital was to be attended by visiting consultants but would be run by two local practitioners, the first in post were Dr John Morrison of Portree and Dr Calum Og MacRae from Uig.
At the entrance to the out-patients’ clinic, the chief architectural feature was the semi-circular porch – a faint echo of a pre-war era of an ocean liner moderne aesthetic. Its original perky seaside charm was marred by infilling and the addition of a second storey in 2005-6. Prosaically enough, the porch was intended as a pram shelter. The attic floor had accommodation for ten resident staff. There were fireplaces in the sitting rooms in addition to central heating, the decoration was described in The Hospital as ‘contemporary in light tone colours with wallpaper used in the sitting rooms, main hall, etc. The furnishings are all of contemporary design in vivid bright colours to show up against the light-coloured walls.’
Ground plan of the hospital as originally built, from The Hospital, September 1965
Portree hospital was officially opened on 31 March 1965 by A. A. Hughes, Under-Secretary at the Scottish home and Health Department. I am not quite sure what its future is. A new hospital has been built next to the MacKinnon Memorial at Broadford, so the fate of the older hospital there is perhaps also in doubt.
Further Information and references: J. C. Leslie and S. J. Leslie, History of Highland HospitalsThe Hospitals of Skye, 2011, Old Manse Books, Avoch, Scotland. Department of Health files at the National Records of Scotland, Minutes of the Northern Regional Hospital Board are at Highlands Archives in Inverness.
At the end of September my husband, Chris, and I took a trip to the south-west corner of Scotland, to the Rhins of Galloway. On the way there and on the way back we stopped off at various hospitals, including this one at Girvan, on the Ayrshire coast.
This small cottage hospital was designed by the Glasgow firm of architects Watson, Salmond and Gray and built in 1921-2. It was officially opened on 15 June 1922. Thomas Davidson founded and endowed the hospital as a memorial to his mother. The Builder described the style as ‘a free treatment of the Scottish domestic’ and noted that the roofs were slated with Tilberthwaite slates (silver grey). The builders were the local masons, Thomas Blair & Son, who fashioned the handsome Auchenheath stone. They worked with J. & D. Meikle, joiners; William Auld & Son, slater, and William Miller, plasterer, all from Ayr. Tile work was carried out by Robert Brown & Sons of Paisley and the plumbing was done by William Anderson, Ltd, Glasgow. [The Builder, 1 July 1921, p.10.]
When it was visited in the 1940s as part of the Scottish Hospitals Survey it was praised for its good condition. At that time it had 14 beds in two wards, and two single rooms available for maternity cases. It was mostly used for accident cases and work connected with the local medical practitioners. It had a fairly well-equipped operating theatres and good domestic offices.
It is one of my favourite Scottish cottage hospitals, but it has been on the Register of Buildings at Risk since 2014. It has been replaced by a new Community Hospital on the outskirts of Girvan.
This extension was added in 1971. An effort was made to respect the original building, being small, low, set back and with stone cladding.
Plans to turn the building into an Enterprise Centre came to nothing. More recently an application was submitted for the conversion of the building into two dwellings. I do hope that the former hospital will be cherished by its new owners.
Rear of the building. The single storey wing probably contained the kitchens, but I have never seen the original plans of the building
Lovely matching wing to the rear of the main building, although it looks of a date with the original building, it must have been built after 1963 as it does not appear on the OS map of that date.
Large-scale OS map, surveyed 1963. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland (CC-BY) NLS
I recently had the pleasure of talking to Jackie Bird for the Love Scotland podcast, discussing the use of country houses during the First World War as auxiliary hospitals by the Red Cross. Two National Trust for Scotland properties had been used by the Scottish Red Cross: Leith Hall in Aberdeenshire and Pollok House, Glasgow.
Pollok House, photographed in 2008 by <p&p>photo, from flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
In the first weeks of the war, the authorities were swamped with offers of private houses and other buildings for use as hospitals. Plans to provide emergency hospitals in the event of a war had been made by the Royal Army Medical Corps as early as 1907, the idea then was that a number of territorial force hospitals would be established in converted buildings, mostly schools, colleges or workhouses. That programme was rolled out at the beginning of the war, but had to expand as the conflict intensified taking over more schools and poor-law buildings. The numbers of wounded arriving in Britain rose dramatically over the winter of 1914 to 15.
Fourth Scottish General Hospital, nurse with four American soldiers: Lieut. John Martin, Chaplain Thomas E. Swan, Captain H. I. B. Rice and Lieut. W. W. Gillen, 1918, from American National Red Cross photograph collection
At the outbreak of the war the British Red Cross joined forces with the Order of St John of Jerusalem to set up a Joint War Committee. The Red Cross had secured buildings and equipment and were able to set up temporary hospitals as soon as wounded men began to arrive from abroad. They were staffed by Voluntary Aid Detachments.
Oaklands Red Cross Hospital, Clevedon, Somerset, England, photograph taken following the signing of the Armistice on 11 November 1918 and made into a postcard
The auxiliary hospitals were attached to central military hospitals – receiving patients from those hospitals after they had been treated. The men needed time to rest and recuperate before returning to the Front. By sending them out to these country house hospitals, beds were freed up for more serious cases in the central hospitals, while the domestic surroundings and access to gardens, were ideal to aid recovery.
Leith Hall in Aberdeenshire is another of the country houses used by the Scottish Red Cross during the First World War. The gardens are in the care of the National Trust for Scotland.
In Scotland there were between 160 and 180 auxiliary hospitals and just over a hundred of those were houses. Most were similar in size to Pollok house, although a few were larger – such as Hopetoun House, Glamis and Thirlestane Castle. Of course it was not necessarily the whole house that was used as a hospital. At Pollok house two of the main reception rooms were used: the dining room and the music room.
Glamis Castle, photographed in 2008 by Rev Stan on Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
Other buildings used as auxiliary hospitals were mostly community halls, but there were also some schools, and in Glasgow the headquarters building of the North British Locomotive Company at Springburn was one of the larger Red Cross hospitals with 400 beds.
Hyde Park Ward, Springburn Red Cross Hospital, from Scottish Archives for Schools. (National Records of Scotland reference: BR/LIB(S) 5/63)
Below is a list of auxiliary hospitals in use in Scotland during the First World War. They are divided into the three Red Cross districts covering the West of Scotland, East of Scotland and Northern Scotland. The list is adapted from the list on the Red Cross website, with information added from Gordon Barclay’s report on the built heritage of the First World War in Scotland.
St Ann’s Hospital occupies a large site in South Tottenham in the London Borough of Haringey. About half the site is being redeveloped by the NHS, the rest – the western side of the hospital – was sold for development. As far as I can gather, it is the last remaining extant fever hospital built by the Metropolitan Asylums Board, one of nine that were built to serve the capital. St Ann’s was originally known as the North Eastern Fever Hospital. The original temporary buildings were replaced in 1900-2 by sturdy permanent brick buildings, mostly of two storeys, to designs by the architects A & C Harston. Despite the historic significance of the site, Historic England turned down an application for designating the hospital as a listed building.
Here I have put together a sequence of photographs that were sent to me by one of the campaigners and activists who have been fighting to preserve both the buildings and the fine landscape around them. The importance of hospital gardens as therapeutic spaces is much talked about these days, but has long been recognised. These valuable spaces only really began to disappear as car ownership grew in the 1960s, and landscapes were covered over by concrete or tarmac to provide much-needed carpark space. Rarely, there is still much valuable green space at St Ann’s, along with many mature trees. There is a petition to save the trees, so if you would like to sign, follow this link or search on change.org for Save St Ann’s Hospital trees.
I think these images speak for themselves of the quality of the buildings, and the interest that there is on the site. You can find more pictures and an account of the hospital’s history on Peter Higginbotham’s workhouses.org website, and on Lost Hospitals of London. For now I am going to post this piece as it is, later I will add in more information and write a supplementary post with an overview of the history of the buildings. All the images here were very kindly provided by Vivienne Youell, copyright and permission to reproduce rest with her.
Administration Block, main frontAdmin block from the rearEvening light on the shaped gables of the admin blockTall chimney stacks and shaped gables give character to the buildingsOn the left, blind boxes on the windows are a rare and unusual survival on a hospital building, used to house sun shades.Covered ways linked the detached blocks, these are details that seldom remain once the developers have moved in.Brickwork and Biffa bins, all basking in the sunshineLaundry Building to rightNarrow passage way between the buildings at the working end of the hospital, for stores, kitchens, workshops and laundry
Nature taking overInside former workshopAn attic store, all those books!The covered way, and the workshop block on the rightMatron’s House and Staff BlockThe garden area in front of the staff blockTopiary! Clipped yew perhaps?A ward pavilion through the treesStock brick with red-brick bands glow in low sunlightWard block for diphtheria/enteric fever, with original ironwork covered way, and 20th-century escape bridgelinking to adjacent ward block.This tall oversailing arch between the sanitary block projections is a striking and unusual featureLovely cherry blossom at the gate lodge. And NHS blue iron bollardsLush summer grass, looking towards the lodgeIsolation block in foreground
It was back in June 1992 that Colin Thom and I visited King Edward VII Hospital, as it then was, as part of the RCHME Hospitals Project. The project involved site visits to as many pre-1948 hospitals throughout England as we could identify and manage within the three years allotted for the project. For the most interesting of these sites we requested professional photography from the Commission’s pool of excellent photographers, and those are now a part of the Historic England archives. We also took colour slides and black-and-white snaps for ourselves. I have been scanning some of these and have posted some of the slides already, but thought I would share the black-and-white snaps here. They are only snaps, and of mixed quality, but I think they provide an interesting record of how the hospital looked 30 years ago.
Central range, south front of King Edward VII Hospital, June 1992
You can just spot someone sitting in the alcove on the far left. The gardens around the sanatorium were designed by the architects Adams & Holden and the planting plans were drawn up by Gertrude Jekyll. Jekyll produced some forty plans in about 1905, which detail the planting for the formal gardens, the areas just behind the main south block and between it and the chapel, and also the Medical Superintendent’s garden. The light and sandy soil lent itself to Mediterranean plants, and ‘in the case of the Sanatorium walls, the planting was carefully considered for colour effect, masses of plants of related or harmonious colouring being kept near together’.¹
West wing of the hospital, looking westwards towards the chapel garden.
A raised basement provided a terrace in front of the ground-floor rooms, while the balcony in front of the first-floor rooms created a degree of shelter, as do the deep eaves for the upper-floor rooms. Shutters allowed the inward-opening doors to be left open over-night, to ensure that there was still plentiful fresh air entering the rooms.
The chapel from the north, showing the eastern nave and the tower.
The sanatorium was largely surrounded by woodland, in particular pine woods. Pines, and the ‘terebinthine’ vapours they exuded were considered particularly beneficial to those suffering from tuberculosis.
View along the western nave of the chapel
The chapel was most unusual, being V-shaped in plan with twin naves, one for male the other for female patients, each focussed on the central chancel.
The plan of the chapel above marks the entrances (no.54); open cloisters (57); altar (58); vestry (59); organ space (60); pulpit (61); lectern (62), nave for men (63); nave for women (64); courtyard (65); store room (66) and the mortuary chapel (67). It was produced for the Tuberculosis Year Book, and reproduced in F. R. Walters, Sanatoria for the Tuberculous, 1913. The south side of the chapel was originally open, the arcade was only glazed during the 1950s.
Above is a view of the western nave of the chapel showing the south wall with its glazed arcade. Although the glazing was added in the 1950s, its elegant design is very pleasing, and adds rather than detracts from the architectural effect of the building. It is also an indication of the changes in the way that tuberculosis was treated, following the discovery and widespread use of antibiotics, and the rather slower uptake of the BCG vaccine, which finally lead to the decline in TB and the redundancy of the sanatoria.
Detail of the clerestory windows and, just visible, the plaster frieze above.
Above the clerestory windows in the chapel a deep frieze is just-about visible on the photograph above, featuring vine leaves and bunches of grapes. It is an Arts & Crafts detail, inspired by later seventeenth century plasterwork.
Western nave, looking north-east
Midhurst Sanatorium was one of the most architecturally ambitious, and expensively fitted out anywhere in Britain. It was designed to represent best-practice at the time, and provide a model for future sanatoria in this country, also encouraging the establishment of sanatoria in Britain to bring open-air treatment within the reach of a wider section of society.
The main corridor at the centre of the hospital lead directly from the main entrance on the north side to the gardens on the south.
In the centre of Stevenage, just next to the central library with its adjoining Health Centre, stands this gem of an early NHS building. However, the building is now under threat of demolition as part of the current Stevenage Development Board’s plans to make ‘Stevenage Even Better’. (Surely a potential sequel to W1A?) There has been an outpouring of dismay at this decision on Twitter. Is it too late to hope that this building might be preserved? So many of the early NHS hospital buildings have been demolished, this is becoming an increasingly rare survivor.
It was built in advance of the new District General Hospital, the new Lister Hospital. Well in advance as it turned out, as the outpatients clinic was built in 1959-61 while the residents of the New Town had to wait another ten years or so for the opening of the Lister Hospital.
The Lister Hospital. Photographed by Peter O’Connor in 2011, CC BY-SA 2.0
Stevenage Development Corporation reached an agreement with the North-West Metropolitan Regional Hospitals Board in about 1957 for them to build a casualty and outpatients’ clinic on a site to the south of the main shopping core of the New Town. The site formed part of the area reserved for Hertfordshire County Council, offering the opportunity of forming a close link between the clinic and the local authority’s health centre. The County Council agreed to give up part of the land to the Hospital Board in recognition of the need for hospital services in the town, which were provided by the hospitals at Hitchin. These were the former workhouse (renamed the Lister Hospital during the Second World War) and the North Hertfordshire and South Bedfordshire Hospital, the town’s long-established former voluntary hospital. Both of these hospitals had been acquired by the State on the appointed day in June 1948 when the National Health Service was inaugurated.
Stevenage Outpatient Centre when new, reproduced from The Hospital, March 1962. General view showing the gymnasium on the left.
Plans were approved for the clinic in about 1958 at which time it was anticipated that work would begin on site the following summer. The commission was put out to Peter Dunham, Widdup and Harrison, architects based in Luton, a firm that had some experience with hospital design in Northern Ireland, but also designed some elegant private houses, laboratories and factories. It was not unusual for the NHS to place design work with private firms, especially for larger schemes. Most of the Regional Boards had architects departments, but some were small, and initially under-staffed for the large amount and range of work with which they were faced.
Peter Dunham was born in Luton and had trained at the Bartlett School of Architecture. He had started in private practice in 1933, and served in the Royal Engineers during the war, where he met MacFarlane Widdup. Widdup, a Yorkshireman who had trained in Leeds, was two years older than Dunham. According to the Architectural Review of 1953 he spent his spare time ‘cutting down trees too near his new house, admiring other people’s vintage cars and making amateur films of the kind no-one else understands’. As for the third partner of the team, Michael Harrison was a fellow Lutonian and Bartlett student, who had spent three years in local government before joining Dunham and Widdup in 1949.
Stevenage Development Corporation welcomed the development of the clinic but lamented that instead of building even the first stage of a new general hospital all that the Regional Hospitals Board were able to do were some improvements to the existing Lister and North Herts Hospitals at Hitchin. In their Annual Report published in 1959, the Corporation noted their hopes that the Stevenage Hospital would be given high priority when the country’s economic circumstances permitted new hospital building. The growing population of the area was making it more difficult for the Hitchin hospitals to meet the demands made on them. When the new clinic opened it functioned as an annexe of the old Lister Hospital at Hitchin and provided a full range of consultative and specialist clinics staffed from both the Lister and the North Herts. Since that time it has continued to have an outpatient function within the NHS, and latterly was known as the Danestrete Centre.
The most distinctive feature of the building is the gymnasium with its decorative quilted finish to the external walls. On the north side the lozenges of aggregate chips are pinned together by blue tiles bearing the coat of arms of Joseph Lister. This alluded to the Lister Hospital, which had been so-named as Lister had attended the Quaker school at Hitchin as a child.
This part of the building was specially designed as an independent reinforced concrete frame structure, to isolate it from the rooms beneath, in order to ‘avoid interference by the activities of this department’.
The gymnasium in the physiotherapy department of the clinic. From The Hospital, March 1962, p.151
The remainder of the construction is of brickwork with concrete floors and timber roofs. The ceilings of the corridors and the public spaces, such as the waiting room, were lined with sound absorbent boarding for quietness. Particular efforts were made to provide a ‘homely building’ offering a ‘friendly welcome to the patients’. Accordingly materials and decorations in the waiting areas were carefully chosen to create the desired atmosphere, and a modern touch was provided by a large abstract mural at the entrance, giving a ‘strong and gay splash of colour’.
Interior view published in 1962, showing the waiting area, with natural wood finishes, patterned lino tiles.From The Hospital, March 1962.
The clinic was centrally heated, and apart from its gymnasium, provided a series of consultant and examination rooms, treatment rooms, dental and E.N.T. departments, and small pathological department, x-ray, and pharmacy. The original proposal to include a casualty section was not carried out, and emergency services continued to be dealt with at the old Lister Hospital in Hitchin. The total cost of the building was £95,610.
Ground Floor Plan of the Outpatients Clinic, from The Hospital, March 1962.
Upper Floor Plans of the Outpatients Clinic, from The Hospital, March 1962
References: Stevenage Development Corporation, 11th Annual Report, 1 April 1957 to 31 March 1958 and 12th Annual Report, 1 April 1958 to 31 March 1959: Architectural Review, 1 Nov. 1953, p.282: The Hospital, March 1962, pp.147-51.
