ABBOTS LANGLEY

Abbots Langley Hospital and Leavesden Hospital Annexe, College Road (St Pancras Industrial School) NGR: TL 102 012 Historic England Archive: BF 101187 demolished. 

The main building on this site was built in 1870 as St Pancras Industrial School. It is a large, red-brick ‘Institutional Gothic’ building by John Giles & Biven. In the 1930s it became an annexe to Leavesden Hospital, but was requisitioned as an emergency hospital in 1939, when a complex of brick-built ward huts was erected in the annexe grounds. After the war the old school buildings were returned to Leavesden Hospital and the hutted buildings became Abbots Langley Hospital for geriatrics. 

Leavesden Hospital (Metropolitan Asylum for Imbeciles; Leavesden Mental Hospital) NGR: TL 103 017 Historic England Archive: BF 101186 largely demolished

Leavesden Hospital was established as one of the two asylums for pauper imbeciles provided by the Metropolitan Asylums Board, the other being at Caterham. Both asylums were designed on identical plans by John Giles of Giles and Biven in 1868.

Now all that remains of the former hospital complex is the main entrance block, chapel and recreation hall. These have been converted to flats and workshops and named Leavesden Court.

BISHOP’S STORTFORD

Bishop’s Stortford and District Hospital (Bishop’s Stortford Cottage Hospital) TL 488 222 101514 converted to housing – ‘Cedar Court’

Herts and Essex Hospital, Haymeads Lane (Bishop’s Stortford Union Workhouse; Haymeads Institution). TL 500 209 101343

A typical Kempthorne-plan mid-Victorian workhouse, of brick and stone, comprising a central Y-plan group of three-storey dormitory wings surrounded by smaller out-buildings. The architect was W. T. Nash, although a competition based on Kempthorne’s hexagonal design was won by T. L. Evans. It was built in 1836-7.

An additional wing, with open south-facing veranda and balcony, was added in the 1930s; a two-storey red-brick nurses’ home also dated from this period. During the Second World War, two complexes of Emergency Medical Service (EMS) huts were erected in the grounds, as was an extra nurses’ home. 

In 2001-3 a new community hospital was built on ground to the rear of the site, designed by Devereux Architects. It is low rise, largely two storeys, in two-tone brick – red for the ground storey with buff for the upper storey – broken up by sections of cream-painted render. The core of the original workhouse was converted to housing, the remainder of the hospital blocks demolished and the site developed with a mixed housing estate of 3-storey flats and houses. The new hospital also replaced the former cottage hospital.

BUSHEY

Bushey and District Hospital (Bushey Heath Cottage Hospital) TQ 151 945 101516 demolished

The health centre and housing around Aspen Place were built on the site of the former cottage hospital.

Bushey Maternity Hospital, Heathbourne Road TQ 155 944 demolished, Spire Hospital built on the site

CHESHUNT

Cheshunt Cottage Hospital, Church Lane TL 355 029 101338 demolished

This small cottage hospital, with just six beds, was founded as a memorial to Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887. It was designed by Young and Hall and opened in 1890. A two-storeyed central block was flanked by the single-storeyed ward wings and the building was constructed of local stock brick. By the 1990s it had undergone many small alterations and a large extension was built in the 1930s. In 1992 it served as an out-patients’ clinic under the National Health Service (NHS).

Cheshunt Community Hospital King Arthur Court, Turner’s Hill TL 360 018

Small, unremarkable hospital of two storeys, pitched roofs, red brick with some areas of rendered, thin grey brick band course and roof-ridge ventilator with weather vane. Familiar NHS blue-painted railings and other ironwork. It was formed by extending an existing 2-storey clinic. (Tangram Architects.) Opened 1998. [Sources: Lost Hospitals of London.]

Cheshunt Isolation Hospital, Dig Dag Hill TL 3384 0390 converted to flats, some blocks demolished

Built by Cheshunt Urban District Council. It comprised an administration block of brick which included staff accommodation for matron, six nurses and six servants; a laundry and mortuary; a brick-built block for diphtheria patients with twelve beds; and a temporary iron building that was originally intended for smallpox cases but later became the scarlet-fever block, with three wards and two isolation wards providing accommodation for ten adults or fifteen children. The permanent brick buildings were erected in 1906.

COLNEY HEATH

Hill End Hospital (Hertfordshire County Asylum) TL 176 067 101236  largely demolished

Hill End Hospital was built as the Hertfordshire County Asylum. It was designed in 1896 by G. T. Hine on an échelon plan and opened in 1899. It originally contained accommodation for 576 patients but by the 1930s this had risen to 1,232.

The main buildings were largely of two storeys, of red brick. After closure in 1995, most of the hospital complex was demolished. Only the chapel and the three southmost blocks survive, the remainder of the site developed for housing.

HARPENDEN

Harpenden Memorial Hospital, Carlton Road (Harpenden Auxiliary Hospital and Memorial Nursing Centre) TL 136 147 101238 

A small general hospital, established in 1929 in a late-nineteenth-century house, known as The Red House. A single-storey ward wing was added in 1940. The Red House was designed by Maurice B. Adams and built in about 1896 for A. Vaughan Stevens.

Sanatorium for Consumptive Children (National Children’s Home and Orphanage Sanatorium) TL 132 151 101998 now the King’s School

Built in 1909-10 to designs by Holman & Goodrham, who were also the architects for the children’s home. The home had been established in Bethnal Green and the sanatorium for children who were suffering from TB was built before the new buildings for the children’s home which relocated here just before the First World War. The new home was built on the ‘cottage homes’ model in 1912-13, with semi-detached villas to accommodate the children arranged in an oval around a central green, along with a chapel, school and service buildings. It became known as ‘Highfield Oval’ There was also a house for the governor, administration block, workshops and staff houses. The chapel was built in 1928, and along with new stained glass by Frank Salisbury included two windows relocated from the Bethnal Green site. The homes closed in 1995 after which the complex was occupied by Youth With A Mission, while the former sanatorium became the King’s School. [Source: Pevsner Architectural Guide Hertfordshire, p.231.]

HEMEL HEMPSTEAD

Bennett’s End Hospital (Hemel Hempstead Joint Isolation Hospital). TL 068 064 101233 demolished

A small rural isolation hospital, built in 1914-15 to designs by John Saxon Snell and Stanley M. Spoor of London. It comprised a combined administration block and nurses’ home, two single-storey ward blocks, an observation block, and a service block housing the laundry, mortuary and ambulance garage. Logandene Elderly Care Unit was built on the site, together with a small day hospital and the Orchards day centre.

Hemel Hempstead Hospital (see West Herts Hospital)

Hemel Hempstead Union Workhouse, Redbourn Road. TL 061 079 101075 demolished

Hemel Hempstead workhouse was built in 1836. In 1869 a separate infirmary was added which provided 40 beds. This was enlarged in 1935 to accommodate 76 beds and a small nurses’ home was built at the same date.  An isolation hospital had been built to the east of the workhouse site by the later 1890s which was subsequently converted and extended to create a children’s home. At the start of the Second World War a hutted annexe was built to the north of the institution.

Under the NHS the complex became St Paul’s Hospital and the original main workhouse range demolished. In the early 1980s the complex formed the St Paul’s wing of Hemel Hempstead Hospital. It had closed by the early 1990s and the site redeveloped for housing and

West Herts Hospital (West Hertfordshire Infirmary) TL 061 079 101520

The original infirmary was replaced by a new purpose-built hospital in 1875-7 by the well-established hospital architects Coe & Robinson. It followed the relatively newly established pavilion plan with a central administration and service block flanked by ward wings. The hospital steadily expanded as Hemel Hempstead grew. The land to the south was acquired and housing cleared in the 1980s to make way for the Verulam Wing in 1992.

West Hertfordshire Infirmary TL 057 070 BF101518. 

In 1831 a new hospital was built at Marlowes in Hemel Hempstead to replace the existing one at Piccotts End to the north of the town, which had become inadequate in terms of its size and location. The first stone of the new building was laid by the Countess of Clarendon on 8 May 1831 and it was completed in time to deal with the many accidents that happened when the London to Birmingham railway was being built through the town of Hemel Hempstead. The new building was funded by Sir John Sebright, and was called the West Herts Infirmary. In 1878 the building ceased to be a hospital was renamed Cheere House and became a convalescent home. In 1946 the building became a residential training school for nurses and remained as such until the early 1960s when it was used as administration offices and Doctors’ accommodation. By the early 1990s the building needed major repair and was refurbished to provide a medical post-graduate centre.

HERTFORD

East Herts Hospital, Ware Road (Hertford and Ware Isolation Hospital) TL 340 130 101340 demolished

This former isolation hospital comprised an administration block, three detached single-storeyed ward pavilions, erected in 1897-8, and two on the east side of the site which appeared to have been added in the 1920s or 1930s. One of these last was a cubicle isolation block. 

Hertford County Hospital, North Road (Hertford General Infirmary) TL 319 126 101339 partly demolished

The general infirmary at Hertford was built in 1832-3, the institution having originated in a dispensary established in 1822. A three-storey classical building of stuccoed brick, it was designed by Thomas Smith, and was a typical example of the country-house style of such institutions at this time. The pediment carries a sculptural panel representing medicine by George Smith. The infirmary was enlarged in 1878, when a chapel was added Smith and Austin with Thomas Tayler Smith architects, and again in 1895.

A new wing for nurses and patients was built in 1922, but the most interesting feature of the site is the complex of ward wings added in 1932-3. These were designed by C. Ernest Elcock and were the first examples in England of ‘veranda wards’. Beds were arranged parallel with the long walls and in groups separated by screens of steel and glass. The windows were in large horizontal units, with sashes which folded back fully from the centre to either side, thus rendering unnecessary the provision of sun balconies and avoiding the movement of beds. 

The original County Hospital was replaced in 2003-4 by a new hospital (architects Murphy Phillips) built to the south-east. The former hospital building was then converted to flats, but most of the later buildings were demolished.

Hertford Union Workhouse TL 344 131 100920 demolished

Built for Hertford Union in 1867-9 to replace a pre-poor law reform parish workhouse. It was designed for 250 inmates by the architect Frederick Peck. In 1919 it became an institution for ‘mental defectives’ – and evolved from that into a special school for children with learning disabilities. [See Workhouses.org for further details.]

HITCHIN

Hitchin Hospital (Hitchin Union Workhouse, Lister Hospital) TL 177 296 demolished

North Hertfordshire and South Bedfordshire Hospital (North Hertfordshire and South Bedfordshire Infirmary) TL 182 293 101513 largely demolished

The core of the original hospital survives – now Thomas Bellamy House. A large Waitrose supermarket has been built to the north-west of that.

LETCHWORTH

Letchworth Hospital TL 226 323 101512

Letchworth Hospital opened in Pixmore House in October 1914. The establishment of a cottage hospital in Letchworth had first been proposed in 1906 when a local Nursing Association was formed, whose aims included the future provision of a dispensary and a hospital. The idea was revived as part of the Letchworth 1914 Scheme, and a committee was appointed in June 1912 to make arrangements for the design and construction of a hospital. Keith Young, the eminent specialist hospital architect, was appointed as an assessor for a limited competition for the design, the entrants being restricted to architects practising in Letchworth.

In August 1913 Young selected the entry from Barry Parker, of Barry Parker & Raymond Unwin, a Neo-Georgian style building, with symmetrical seven-bay front, of two storeys with attics (very much like Rosehill Hospital, below). An engraved view was published in The Citizen, Letchworth in March 1914. The outbreak of the First World War in July put an end to the fund raising, but not to the need for a hospital. Those requiring treatment had previously either been admitted to Hitchin Hospital or had to travel to one of the London Hospitals, but the reservation of beds for the military meant that there were fears that it would be difficult to secure admission, and impossible to be admitted to a London hospital for surgery.

The Letchworth Hospital committee was offered the use of a number of houses locally for use as a hospital, including from Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin. They accepted the offer of Pixmore House from Mr and Mrs Cockerell. This was close to the site that the committee had already acquired fro the new hospital, comprising 3.5 acres to the south-west of Pixmore Farm House. In these early months of the war, it was still widely believed that hostilities would be over soon – if not by Christmas – and so Pixmore House was taken for one year, and the hospital designated Letchworth Temporary Hospital. It garnered enormous support of funds, voluntary service to staff the hospital, and of furniture and provisions. Welwyn Hospital lent an operating table, and the local medical practitioners, Dr Ledward and Dr Macfadyen, gave a steriliser while Dr Wilson donated most of the surgical instruments.

In March 1917 the Board of Management of the hospital decided they should drop ‘temporary’ from the hospital’s name, as it now seemed ‘calculated to lead to misunderstandings concerning their future plans’. By the beginning of the war only £2,300 had been raised towards the £6,000 it had been anticipated would be required. With rising costs, £10, 000 seemed a more likely figure. However, there was encouragement to be had from subscriptions ‘from the industrial classes’, the popularity of ‘Pound Day’ and the recognition and observation of Hospital Sunday. The hospital had also amalgamated with the Letchworth District and School Nursing Association in 1916, which unified fund-raising efforts. After the war the hospital’s funds gained a number of legacies and a grant of £1,000 from the Red Cross’s surplus funds (amounting to nearly £1m and distributed throughout the country for capital projects).

In 1919 the hospital became Letchworth Hospital (Incorporated), and a scheme launched to build a wing as a ‘peace memorial’. The foundation stone of the hospital extension was laid on 9 January 1921 by the May Queen of Letchworth, and the was completed by November 1922. It is possible that Barry Parker provided the architectural plans, or at least advised on them. as the Hospital’s annual report for 1932 thanks Mr Barry Parker, FRIBA and Mr W. G. Satchell, who had ‘again assisted generously by their advice upon architectural and building maintenance questions’. In 1930 a further Extension Fund was launched, with Letchworth ‘White City’ a 3-day fair and fete, opened by Lady Bonham Carter.

The hospital transferred to the NHS in 1948, within the North-West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board’s administrative area, under the Luton and Hitchin Board of Management. At that date the hospital had 38 beds. It continued in use until closure in 1988. By then it had become a geriatric unit. Services were moved to Royston and Hitchin, and the Letchworth Hospital was redeveloped as a hospice. The original Pixmore House now forms part of White House Care Home, while the purpose-built hospital extensions have been adapted to form Garden House Hospice. [Sources: The Citizen, Letchworth, 8 Aug. 1913, p.5; 20 March 1914, p.2; 11 Sept. 1914, p.3; 23 Oct. 1914, p.4; 30 Oct. 1914; 30 July 1915, p.3; 16 March 1917, p.5: Hertfordshire Express, 31 May 1919, p.3; 20 Sept. 1919; 4 Oct. 1919, p.7; 6 Dec. 1919; 24 May 1930, p.5; Beds and Herts Pictorial, 17 Feb. 1931, p.12; Letchworth Hospital, Eighteenth Annual Report, 1932: Hospitals Yearbook 1948: Cambridge Daily News, 9 Aug. 1988, p.4.]

Rosehill Hospital (North Herts and South Beds Isolation Hospital; North Herts Joint Isolation Hospital) TL 208 309 101999 (largely extant, one later ward block demolished, now the Sadie Centre)

Hitchin Rural District Council purchased the site on which to build an isolation hospital in 1912. They appointed three local medical practitioners, Dr Day, Dr N. Macfadyen and Dr Freemantle, as a Medical Advisory Committee to report on the nature of the buildings and general requirements of the hospital in August 1913, and by February 1914 H. Percy Adams of Adams, Holden and Pearson, had been appointed as the architect. The committee visited Amptill isolation hospital, also designed by Adams, early in 1914, which influenced the plans, as did a later visit to Barnet Isolation Hospital. Tenders were received in July, and Kidman & Sons of Cambridge awarded the building contract on their tender of £7,923. Despite the outbreak of war, work proceeded – although it was delayed at the start when the labourers went on strike over a pay dispute. Building work was completed in the summer of 1915, and the hospital opened for public inspection at the end of October. It was ready to received patients at the beginning of December 1915.

The local newspaper, The Citizen, was full of praise for the new hospital, and its fine location with a beautiful outlook with a view of Hitchin and the hills beyond to the south and west. At the entrance to the site was a substantial lodge for the porter (since enlarged). Facing the entrance was the administration block, which contained a room for the matron, staff dining-room and a kitchen on the ground floor, and staff bedrooms on the upper floors.

The main ward pavilion at the rear of the site had two, six-bed wards and a large glass-covered verandah on the south side into which patients could be moved in fine weather. The floors were of teak as were the doors which were ‘two inches thick and practically air-tight and noise-tight’.

The isolation block, on the west side of the site, was in effect a ‘cubicle’ block, in which the beds were in cubicles with plate-glass between them to allow the nurse on duty in the central room to keep them within her view. This block was intended for ‘bad cases’. On the other side of the administration block was a building containing the laundry, ambulance shed, mortuary, and the steam disinfecting plant.

In the mid-1930s the hospital had 56 available beds, and additions included an X-ray department and boiler-house. In 1948 the hospital had 40 beds and under the NHS came under the Luton and Hitchin Board of Management, within the North-West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board’s administrative area. By the 1960s it had been renamed Rosehill Hospital, and adapted into a geriatric unit. In 1988 it became the home of the Sadie Centre, [Sources: Hospitals Yearbook, 1935; 1948: The Citizen, Letchworth, 5 July 1912; 1 Aug 1913, 13 Feb., 5 June, 17 and 31 July, 28 Aug. and 20 Nov 1914; 2 July, 27 Aug., 22 and 29 Oct. and 17 Dec. 1915: H. Percy Adams ‘English Hospital Planning, part II’, Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 29 June 1929, p.645.]

LONDON COLNEY

Cell Barnes Hospital, Highfield Lane (Cell Barnes Mental Colony). TL 174 061 101237 demolished

A psychiatric hospital, established in 1933, comprising individual domestic-style patient ‘villas’, arranged within attractive grounds around a central core of service and administrative buildings. 

Napsbury Hospital, Shenley Lane (Middlesex County Asylum). TL 165 038 101222 partly demolished. See blog post for more on the history of the hospital and its conversion to housing

Designed in 1900 by Rowland Plumbe, Napsbury Hospital reflected many of the developments in asylum design and planning at the turn of the century, comprising a main complex laid out in a dog-leg échelon accompanied by a detached hospital complex and a number of detached villas. It was erected to supplement Springfield Asylum, transferred to Middlesex from Surrey County when the earlier Middlesex Asylums were taken over by the London County Council in 1889. 

POTTERS BAR

Potters Bar Hospital, Mutton Lane. TL 258 010 101057 demolished

A small district hospital, of red brick, erected c.1938. It had a symmetrical plan, with single-storey ward wings arranged in a double-crucifix around a central two- and three-storey administration section. It closed in 1995, with the opening of Potters Bar Community Hospital. A Tesco supermarket has been built on the site.

Potters Bar Community Hospital, Barnet Road TL 260 002

ROYSTON

Royston Union Workhouse, Baldock Road (Heath Lodge) TL 350 407 101523 demolished

The housing around Downlands were built on the site in the 1970s.

Royston Cottage Hospital, Barkway Road TL 358 403 101517

Founded in 1870, it seems to have remained little altered through to the 1920s but by 1938 had been turned into a private house – then called Ivy Hedges.

Royston Isolation Hospital, Garden Walk TL 366 413 102802 demolished

Established by 1919, but out of use by the late 1930s, the hospital was demolished and the housing around Hawthorn Close built on the site.

Royston Hospital, London Road TL 357 398

Built in 1920-4 to designs by Barry Parker to replace the earlier cottage hospital. It was enlarged in 1928.

SHENLEY

Shenley Hospital, London Road (Middlesex County Mental Hospital). TL 184 007 101239 largely demolished

This large mental hospital was designed in 1930 by the County Architect, W. T. Curtis. The nearby Harperbury colony for mental defectives had been commenced in the previous year to his designs. Shenley was a particularly good example of its type. The well planted and gently rolling site provided the interest lacking in the functional brick buildings and contrasted with its austere neighbour of Harperbury. Perhaps some of the landscaping was retained from the Porter’s Park estate, along with the large mansion which was converted into a convalescent home.

The hospital was designed to accommodate 2,000 patients and was constructed in two main building phases. The first phase, completed in 1934, comprised all the central administration buildings, kitchen, boiler house and recreation hall as well as about half the villas for the patients.

The mansion was retained after the hospital closed in 1998 and the site redeveloped as a housing estate. Porters Park house had belonged to Nicholas Hawksmoor in the eighteenth century and later to Admiral Lord Howe, for whom it was rebuilt by Sir Robert Taylor soon after 1772. The house was rebuilt or remodelled in 1902 for C. F. Raphael by the architect C. J. Harold Cooper. [Pevsner Architectural Guide, Hertfordshire, p.523.]

One of the most attractive buildings on the site was the chapel, built in the second building phase which was underway by 1937. This is one of the few hospital buildings to have been retained as part of the redevelopment of the site. It was converted to a community centre. Orchard Villa, south of the chapel, was also retained and the former medical superintendent’s house, Porterslea, to the west of the stables, the water tower and some of the staff housing on the northern edge of the site.

SOUTH MIMMS

Clare Hall Hospital, (Clare Hall Isolation Hospital) TL 218 003 demolished

ST ALBANS

St Albans and Mid-Hertfordshire Hospital and Dispensary (St Albans Dispensary) TL 147 069 101515 demolished

The hospital and dispensary was centrally placed on Holywell Hill, not far from the Cathedral. When the hospital moved to Verulam Road the old building became a school, which it remained until some time after 1924. The building had been demolished by the mid-1930s.

St Albans and Mid-Herts Hospital, Verulam Road (St Albans Dispensary; St Albans and Mid-Herts Hospital and Dispensary). TL 144 076 101235 part demolished

A small urban hospital, established as a dispensary in 1843. In 1888 the institution moved from its home on Holywell Hill to a new, purpose-built hospital in Verulam Road. This was a two-storey, vernacular-style building, of red brick, designed by Alexander Graham, of London. Plans for expansion, dating from the 1930s, saw minor additions at either end of the hospital, but the main expansion came in the post-war period when the site to the north was acquired. At that time the hospital had become St Albans City Hospital Mid Herts Wing. All the later additions to the site have been demolished. The core of the hospital was retained by the NHS, currently a children’s centre, the ground to the north was cleared to make way for Albany Lodge, psychiatric unit.

St Albans City Hospital (St Albans Union Workhouse) TL 144 080 100683

Sisters’ Hospital, Union Lane (St Albans City Hospital). TL 144 080 101234 partly demolished

This attractive hospital for infectious diseases was founded by Sir Blundell Maple as a memorial to his daughters, and opened in 1893. It was designed by Morton M. Glover and originally comprised three detached buildings: an administration block, ward block and a service block containing the laundry, mortuary and ambulance shed. The buildings are of red brick with half-timbered gables and tile-hanging. In 1911 a ward pavilion for diphtheria cases was added to the site and further ward blocks were erected in the inter-war period.

In the 1990s the hospital formed part of St Albans City Hospital together with the former St Albans workhouse. A new City Hospital was built to the north-west of the workhouse in the 1960s (see above) and most of the former hospital buildings were demolished to make way for a housing development. The administration block and one other of the Sisters’ hospital blocks have been retained and converted to residential use (now Sisters Lodge and Harriot Heights). The original workhouse range and chapel have also been retained.

ST STEPHEN

Harperbury Hospital, Harper Lane (Middlesex Colony for Mental Defectives). TL 174 017 101240 demolished

This large hospital complex was originally built between 1929 and 1936 as the Middlesex Colony for ‘mental defectives’. It provided accommodation for 1,154 patients in three groups of pavilions or villas for men, women and children. The buildings, designed by the County Architect, W. T. Curtis, were mostly very plain and relied on their distribution over the well laid out site to soften their austere appearance. A new psychiatric hospital and mental health facility was built to the south-west of the site and the original hospital buildings demolished to make way for a large housing estate.

STEVENAGE

Home Hospital for Women

Lister Hospital

WATFORD

Holywell Hospital, Tolpits Lane (Watford Joint Isolation Hospital). TQ 093 949 101230 demolished

An isolation hospital, designed by Charles Ayres for the Watford Union Rural Sanitary Authority and erected to the south-west of Watford in 1893-6. When opened it comprised 42 beds. The hospital was enlarged in 1904, and again in 1934-6 when new cubicle and diphtheria blocks were added by W. H. Hobday, increasing the accommodation to 100 beds.

Watford and District Peace Memorial Hospital, Rickmansworth Road. TQ 105 968 101231 largely demolished

This district general hospital, built to designs by Wallace Marchment in 1923-5, comprised a neo-Georgian administration block, connected by covered corridors to two flanking ward blocks and a north-facing operating theatre block. All the buildings were of brick. Unusually, all the sanitary facilities were housed within the wards, rather than in disconnected annexes. The hospital was extended in 1932-7, although apparently not on the ambitious scale planned by Marchment in 1929.

Of the 5-acre complex, which included an electrical treatment and casualty departments, only the administration block (disused) and the nurses’ home  (a nurses’ training college) remained in 1992. The former administration block was converted to the Peace Hospice which opened in 1996 with additions by the Architects Co-Partnership built in 1998-2001. The Peace Children’s Centre was built in 2000-1 on the east side of the Hospice, was considered by the Pevsner Guide as ‘wilfully discordant, with its green-glazed, outward-sloping ‘prow’ projecting towards Rickmansworth Road.’ [Source: Pevsner Architectural Guide, Hertfordshire, p.608.]

Watford Cottage Hospital, Vicarage Road. TQ 109 962 101144 now Victoria House Day Centre

A typical late-nineteenth century cottage hospital of the smaller type, Watford Cottage Hospital was erected in 1885 to designs by Charles Ayres. The late-nineteenth-century hospital expert, H. C. Burdett, was impressed by the building, suggesting that its compact plan made it worthy of study. It originally provided just nine beds, in two four-bed wards with a single room for isolation purposes. The lavatories were ‘disconnected’ from the wards in the approved manner or pavilion planning, and the kitchen similarly cut off from the main building by a passage. The only fault seemed to be that the cost was on the high side at nearly £300 per bed. Burdett put this down to the strict observance of pavilion-planning which he thought unnecessary in cottage hospitals with ten beds or fewer. [Source: H. C. Burdett, Cottage Hospitals, General, Fever and Convalescent, 1896, p.264.]

The hospital is a single-storey brick-and-tile building to which extra ward wings were added in 1897 and 1903-6. In 1992 it was in use as Victoria House Day Centre.

Watford General Hospital, Vicarage Road (Watford Union Workhouse; Shrodells Hospital). TQ 105 957 101232

The former Watford Union Workhouse survives on part of the site of the District General Hospital built to the south-west in the 1960s. The original workhouse was built in 1836-7, to designs by T. L. Evans. Of the various post-war additions the most substantial is probably the mid-1980s Princess Michael of Kent Wing.

WELWYN GARDEN CITY

Queen Elizabeth II Hospital, TL 251 108 demolished, replaced by the new Queen Elizabeth II hospital

The first Queen Elizabeth II Hospital was one of the earliest completely new general hospitals built by the NHS. It was officially opened by the Queen on 22 July 1963. It was designed in-house by the Regional Architect, F. A. Maunder, and his team, with the Regional Engineer, R. C. Hodge, and consultant structural engineers Leslie Turner and Partners. The grounds were laid out to a landscaping scheme drawn up by Geoffrey Jellicoe. The principal building contractors were William Moss & Sons Ltd.

The hospital was built to serve the new towns of Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City. The site had been agreed in 1951, but funding was not forthcoming until 1955 for actual building work to start. Nevertheless planning had got underway. The working drawings were approved in June 1957 and site works completed by March 1958. Construction on the main building commenced towards the end of 1958.

The main in-patient section occupied the splayed bar of the T-shaped plan, facing south-east over open ground. The wing behind, the clinical block, together with the three-storey spur on its north-east side, housed out-patients’ department, operating theatres, and various ancillary services – such as X-ray and pathology. There were 315 in-patient beds in 11 wards. (54 general medical beds; 58 general surgical; 60 obstetric; 23 gynaecology; 29 orthopaedic; 27 ENT; 29 geriatric; 23 children; 4 dermatology; 4 dental and 4 staff beds.) Ward units had 29 beds arranged as six 4-bed bays and five single rooms with a shared day room.

The plan of the fourth-floor above shows the arrangement of the wards in the south wing, with four-bed bays arranged along the front of the block on either side of the central day room, the single rooms and the ancillary rooms – such as stores and utility rooms – on the other side of the long axial corridor. A set of six lifts in the central tower served the eight floors, with two further lifts at the north end of the clinical wing. The clinical wing on the fourth floor housed the operating theatres – distinctive oval shapes on the plan, and on the model where their curved outer walls produce blind shallow bows that gave a sculptural quality to the elevation. The south wing was similarly to enlivened by the balconies across the central ‘tower’ and to the day rooms half way down each flanking wing.

Also on the site were separate buildings for staff accommodation, an ante-natal clinic and the boiler house.

Its replacement opened in 2015, designed by the architects Sunand Prasad and Greg Penoyre.

Welwyn Garden City Cottage Hospital, Elm Gardens (later a nurses’ home, possibly converted to houses)TL 229 127 101522

Established in 1929 in the Hollies Nursing Home, with 8 beds. Replaced by larger premises in 1940 (see below).

Welwyn Garden City Cottage Hospital, Church Road TL 236 127 now a pub, latterly the Doctor’s Tonic

The new cottage hospital opened in 1940 to replace the Elm Gardens building. Fretherne House in Church Road was acquired, which had been in use as a boys’ prep school. the outbreak of the war had prompted the evacuation of the pupils and closure of the school building. After the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital opened in 1963 the cottage hospital was leased to the local authority and used as an old people’s home. It closed when the lease expired in 1978 and in 1982 re-opened as a public house named the Doctor’s Tonic. [Source: Hertfordshire Community Archive, Our Welwyn Garden City ]

WELWYN

Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital TL 225 159 101511

Built in 1932-4 to designs by H. G. Cherry, with Adams, Holden & Pearson as consulting architects. Continues as an NHS hospital with alter block to south.

Victoria Cottage Hospital, Codicote Road 101521 possibly converted to houses

Welwyn Isolation Hospital, Welwyn By Pass Road (later council offices) TL 232 155 demolished

Welwyn Union Workhouse, London Road (Welwyn Children’s Home) TL 231 155 converted to housing