ALNWICK

Alnwick Infirmary NU 192 130 Historic England Building File: 102318

Alnwick Infirmary, the successor to a Dispensary and Infirmary first built in 1815 under the patronage of the Duke of Northumberland, was built on a new site on Fisher Lane in 1906-8 to designs by the joint architects J Wightman Douglas of Alnwick and Boyd and Groves of Newcastle.  The new Infirmary was opened on 4 November 1908 by the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland. It is a stone-built structure, butterfly-shaped in plan, with a central administration block with two pavilion ward wings to the south. Each ward wing contained a main pavilion ward for five beds with a single-bed separation ward and a nurses’ duty room conveniently placed in the angle between them, with an observation window into each.  Projecting from the outer end of each wing was a sanitary annexe containing bathroom, toilet and slop sink, the wing and annexe separated by a short corridor with a door in one wall and a window in the other.  There was also an outpatients’ department, operating room and service wing to the north. 

Extra wards and staff accommodation was added in 1925, and there have since been further alterations and additions. By the early 1940s the infirmary had 26 beds, including two cots and three single-bed private wards.

A major extension was the construction of a geriatric and acute bed block opened in 1972. In 1966 the medical directory also noted the Hillcrest Maternity Unit at the infirmary with 15 beds.

Sources: RCHME Hospital Survey Report written by Ian Goodall, 1993. Historic England Archives building file contains a photographic survey by the Royal Commission photographer Bob Skingle from March 1993.

Alnwick Union Workhouse NU 190 128 Historic England Building File: 102319

The Alnwick Workhouse was built in 1840 and held 120 inmates.  A workhouse hospital was in existence by 1864, when detached infectious wards adjacent to it were completed to designs by F R Wilson, architect, both buildings are probably shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1861-4.  The statutory list describes a further workhouse and keeper’s house of 1870 built by G Richardson and W Wallace on the north side of Green Batt. A new casual ward at the Alnwick Poor Law Institution for 18 men was erected in 1929 (The Builder, 3 May 1929, 833).  The Public Assistance Committee of Northumberland County Council proposed replacing them with a single new central institution, but the cost proved prohibitive, and an alternative plan involving a smaller central institution and the refurbishment of two existing ones at Alnwick and Berwick was examined. In 1938 it contained 39 beds for the chronic sick, but was closed in June 1943 and the patients, staff and furniture transferred to the Thomas Taylor Homes near Stannington. The workhouse buildings later became an old-people’s home and subsequently were adapted for offices. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey report, written by Ian R. Pattison 1994. For further details see workhouses.org.]

ASHINGTON

Ashington Hospital (Ashington Hospital and Infirmary) NZ 275 874 Historic England Building File: 102309 demolished

Ashington was only a small hamlet in the 1840s when coal mining first took place, but within the next forty years it grew into a town of 25,000 people, planned and built by the Ashington Coal Company.  The Company grew from a handful of men whom the Duke of Portland gave the right to mine coal on a Rental and Royalty Payment Agreement, and it built long rows of houses quickly and cheaply to house its workers and their families.  There was also private development, and churches, schools, institutes, meeting and recreation halls, post offices, a police station and three licensed hotels were built. People who were ill were initially treated at home, but with a growing population and an increasing number of men injured in the mines, it was realised that better nursing facilities were needed.  As a result the Fatal Accident Fund was formed, and women with nursing experience were paid to help look after the sick.  From this developed the Nursing Association which, with donations from the residents and regular contributions from the miners, built and maintained a hospital. 

The foundation stone of the hospital was laid in 1914, and the hospital opened one year later.  It cost £15,000 to build, and during its construction it was recorded as being intended to hold 24 beds. The hospital was still being run in 1929 by the District Nursing Association which had built it as a cottage hospital, but it was later taken over by a committee representing the miners and management of the Ashington Coal Company.  In the 1940s the hospital was described as having 44 beds with two general wards for men, one women’s ward and three single-bed wards.  The operating theatre suite was described as adequate, though the theatre itself was perhaps rather small.  The outpatients’ department had several fair-sized rooms for waiting, consultations, clinics, and physiotherapy.  The hospital was recorded as undertaking the treatment of accidents and diseases of all kinds occurring among contributors, most of whom were miners, and their families.  In theory the hospital was not open to other people except for the treatment of emergencies arising among non-subscribers in Ashington, but `during recent years a few general medical and surgical patients who are not contributors have been accepted’.

The hospital became part of the National Health Service in 1948, after which various additions were made to the site. It closed in 2004 and all the buildings have since been demolished. The site has been developed largely for housing (including sheltered housing), with the creation of Featherwood Drive. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey report, written by Ian H Goodall, May 1993.]

North Seaton Hospital (Ashington UDC Infectious Diseases Hospital) NZ 279 859 Historic England Building File: 102310 demolished

North Seaton Hospital originated as Ashington UDC Infectious Diseases Hospital.  It was on the north bank of the River Wansbeck, and may have superseded a hospital noted in Kelly’s Directory in the entry for Cambois, to the south of Ashington, referring to an old corn Granary that ‘…has been converted into a cottage hospital for occasional infectious cases’.  There is no sign that the building formed part of the new infectious diseases hospital which Ashington UDC built c.1900. The date of construction of the new hospital has not been ascertained, but additions costing £158 were carried out in 1909 to designs by Alexander Wood, surveyor to Ashington UDC.

By 1921 the hospital had two principal buildings, and in 1924 it can be identified as having been a 23-bed scarlet fever hospital, one of two infectious diseases hospitals run by Ashington UDC.  By 1936 the hospital had been enlarged, and these are the buildings which were surveyed as North Seaton Hospital in 1951. The hospital was closed and sold in the early 1970s, and was subsequently demolished and its site redeveloped for housing. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey Report by Ian H Goodall, May 1993.]

BEDLINGTON

Northumberland Miners’ Rehabilitation Centre, NZ 244 801

Established in Hartford House, a Georgian mansion built by a local mine owner. It was still a rehabilitation centre in the 1970s. The house (known as Hartford Hall by the 1960s) has been converted into apartments.

BERWICK-UPON-TWEED

Berwick Infirmary NT 998 534 Historic England Building File: 102316

Berwick Infirmary developed from the Dispensary that had opened in 1814 in a house off Church Street (now Chapel Street), moving then in 1826 to a house in the Quay Walls and Place Street. The Infirmary was built in 1872-4 to designs by John Starforth of Edinburgh and consisted of two ranges, linked by a corridor, each with a pair of two-bay long, single-storeyed pavilion wards, one flanking a two-storeyed administration block with attached tower.  Extra staff accommodation was added in 1897, an operating theatre block in 1906-8 and X-ray facilities in 1912-13. 

No extra ward accommodation was added until 1924-7, and this prompted the construction in 1931 of a new kitchen wing with staff bedrooms on the floor above.  An outpatients’ department was built in the early 1930s and around this time a new mortuary was constructed. By the 1940s the infirmary had 33 beds.

Currently (December 2023) the north of the site is being re-developed as a new Berwick Community Hospital, a new temporary in-patients ward is the first part to be opened, with foundations for the new hospital having been laid. [Sources: RCHME Hospitals Survey Report, Jacqueline Hall and Ian H. Goodall, 1993-4.]

Berwick-upon-Tweed Union Workhouse (Greenhaven Hospital) NT 997 534 Historic England Building File 102317

This workhouse was established in the Castlegate area of Berwick-upon-Tweed in 1836.  It comprised a main H-shaped block with a freestanding rectangular block to its west.  It had separate yards for men, women, boys and girls, and entry was from a narrow lane running west off Brucegate (then Featherbed Lane), past a porter’s lodge in the men’s yard.  The H-shaped block housed the master’s house, cook house and wash house in its central range, the dining room, a store room and the girls’ day room in the east wing, and the boys’ day room, board room, men’s day room and men’s receiving ward in the west wing.  To the north, backing on to High Greens, was a wash house, women’s receiving ward, refractory ward and coal house. The freestanding west range had a school room at its north end, then the female vagrants’ ward, the hospital, and the male vagrants’ ward.

By 1897 the dining room had been demolished and two eastward pointing blocks added to the freestanding west block.  Further buildings had been built to the south of the main block by 1922-3.  After the closure of the workhouse and poor law institution, the buildings became a geriatric hospital connected with the nearby Berwick Infirmary, by the mid-1960s this was known as Greenhaven Hospital which at that time had 28 beds for ‘chronic’ patients. The range including the workhouse infirmary was demolished in about 1990 to allow the construction of a new maternity hospital and works department. In 2001 the remaining buildings were developed for housing. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey report by Ian H Goodall, November 1992; see also workhouses.org.]

Port Hospital (Infectious diseases) NT 999 534 demolished

Discussion about setting up an Isolation Hospital had begun in the Health Board committees at least as early as 1858 (Illustrated Berwick Journal 20th March 1858), and over several years much discussion went on about the right action to take. Eventually it was decided that accommodation for cholera patients be provided at the Port of Berwick and land for the building of a wooden hospital be leased from William Grey at Bull Stob Close in the Greens (IBJ 30th August 1872). Tenders for the work were put out on 29th August 1872 and the recommendation was to accept that of Mr J Henderson of Berwick, for £168 (IBJ 20th September 1872) . The length of lease was discussed and in the end a twenty one year lease was fixed for the ground in Bull Stob Close. Later references to it indicate that it had eight beds, wooden in construction with a corrugated roof. it was certainly built and functioning by May 1873, when there was a call for a permanent tenant in the empty building to prevent theft of furnishings and to attend to patients should they arrive (Berwick Advertiser 23rd May 1873). By 1901 the shortcomings of the hospital were becoming clear , and there was a call to erect a new stone-built hospital for infectious diseases (Berwickshire News and General Advertiser 8th October 1901) at a cost of £5,500, a cost that rate-payers objected to and the scheme was shelved.

By 1922, as the OS map shows the existing Port Hospital had been extended. it is clear that by 1920 that the existing Port Hospital was barely adequate, a proposal from a report by the Public Health Committee of 24th November 1920 was passed. The proposal was for: ‘…arranging the wards and offices in the new military huts erected at the Infectious Hospital Low Greens and completing the hospital with a supply of hot and cold water and installation of lighting and heating, at an estimated cost of £559.’ (Berwick Advertiser 31st December 1920). The resulting improvements increased the capacity to sixteen beds. Infectious disease provision was moved to Marshall Meadows in 1939 (see the next entry) and the Low Greens site was cleared by 1970 and now has been developed for housing (Lord’s Mount).

Marshall Meadows NT 979 566

In September 1939 the 18th Century country house Marshall Meadows, about 2.5 miles further up the coast from Berwick, was donated free of cost as a hospital by the widow of County Alderman Mr T Darling (Berwickshire News 12th September 1939).. The Council approved up £100 to make any alterations that might be necessary and the hospital seems to have had a capacity of 36 beds. The patients were transferred from the old hospital in Berwick immediately Marshall Meadows stayed in service as an Infectious Diseases Hospital until January 1958, when it was bought by the Ayre family and was renovated as a family home. It is now a luxury Hotel, Marshall Meadows Manor House.

Berwick-upon-Tweed Barracks Hospital NU 001 530 Historic England Building File: 102254

Built in late 1745 or shortly afterwards, probably to designs by Dugal Campbell, the hospital served the nearby Barracks.  It was a three-bay central-entry double-pile building of two storeys and attics to which a rear wing was added c.1800.  A now-demolished rear block, which included a mortuary, may have been original. The remaining building has now been converted for residential use. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey Report by Ian H. Goodall, 1993.]

Castle Hills Maternity Home, Paxton Road NT 987 534

Established in a private house on Paxton Road in about 1945. In 1966 had 16 maternity beds. It closed in about 1984.

Greenhaven Hospital (see Berwick Workhouse)

BLYTH

Beulah Maternity Hospital

Had 13 beds in 1966.

Blyth Community Hospital, NZ 309 815 opened 1987 replacing the Thomas Knight Memorial Hospital (see below)

Blyth Port Sanitary Authority (PSA) Infectious Diseases Hospital NZ 300 823 Historic England Building File: 102311 demolished

Blyth Port Sanitary Authority Infectious Diseases Hospital was noted in Kelly’s 1910 Directory of Northumberland as having been built at a cost of £1,300 and opened in August 1893.  It was noted as standing on the west bank of the River Blyth, near Old Factory Point, opposite Cowpen Cemetery, and was a corrugated iron building on a brick foundation comprising `east, west and middle wards, and a residential part containing six rooms’.  It had provision for 20 beds. The hospital has now been demolished. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey Report by Ian H Goodall, November 1992.]

Blyth Factory Point Isolation Hospital NZ301 825

On the site of an old Alkali works just along from the earlier hospital, the proposal to convert two cottages on a ten year lease was made in 1906, the building was bought back in 1940 by the Cowpen Coal Company, to be converted back into dwellings for employees. [Blyth News 6th May 1940.]

Thomas Knight Memorial Hospital NZ 315 815 Historic England Building File: 102312 demolished

Blyth’s first Cottage Hospital was opened in 1863 in a cottage made available to Dr Gilbert Ward, a local doctor, by Sir Matthew White Ridley.  The hospital, in Ridley Avenue, was used for accidents as well as for infectious diseases, and the costs of running it seem to have been borne by the South Blyth Local Board. Dr Ward was a prime mover in the establishment of the next hospital to be founded in Blyth, which was designed to be a memorial to Thomas Knight, a self-made Blyth businessman and ship owner.  Thomas Knight died on 28 March 1878 and his widow, Margaret, who died in April 1879, left in her will a legacy of £6,000 to endow a hospital for the sick and lame poor of the townships of South Blyth, Newsham, and Cowpen.  The hospital was to be named after Thomas Knight and had to be erected within ten years of her death.  None of the money was to be used for hospital building, which was to be the responsibility of the townspeople of Blyth. Dr Ward persuaded Sir Matthew White Ridley to donate a site on Beaconsfield Street for the new hospital and a generous gift of money, other contributions being received from the Duke of Northumberland, Lord Hastings, and the owners of local coal pits.  Over £2,000 was raised and the contract for building was placed with J W Simpson of Blyth.  At meetings in late 1886 it was decided that the institution should be called the Thomas Knight Memorial Hospital for the sick and lame poor of the Townships of Newsham and South Blyth and Cowpen. 

On 28 December 1887 the hospital was opened by Lady Ridley. In January 1888 an advertisement was placed in the Blyth Weekly News that the hospital was to be open to the Sick and Lame poor on and after 30 January 1888.  In 1889 it was agreed that cases of serious accident or illness in the district would only be admitted on the certificate of one of the surgeons of the town, only those who came under the terms of the bequest being admitted free.  Where patients were able to pay, or where the employer was liable to pay for the accident, the charge for maintenance was one guinea a week.  The hospital treated outpatients. In 1910, before any significant extensions had been carried out, it was recorded that the hospital had a large committee room, waiting room, dispensary, two consulting rooms, kitchen and offices on the ground floor and two wards each containing four beds on the upper floor. [Kelly’s Directory, 1910.]

The hospital drew its funds from many sources, among them the Consulates of countries whose ships called at Blyth.  In 1911 the North of England Shipowners Association agree that all ships entering the Rivers Tyne and Blyth be levied in support of the Royal Infirmary at Newcastle, the Ingham Infirmary at South Shields, Tynemouth Infirmary, and the Thomas Knight Memorial Hospital.  Hospital representatives agreed that all monies collected from ships entering Blyth should be divided in the proportion of one-third to Newcastle and two-thirds to Blyth.

The Medical Officer of the hospital reported in 1914 that the Admiralty had asked to have 20 beds provided in the hospital for their use in case of pending hostilities in the North Sea.  Provision was made for the additional beds in the Board Room and the outpatients’ waiting room, the additional beds and bedding having been provided voluntarily by the townspeople.  Military cases were admitted in 1914 and 1915.

Over the years the number of inpatients and outpatients treated at the hospital increased, and the nursing staff was augmented to deal with the increase.  The limited accommodation of ten beds was inadequate in terms of the requirements of the area.  The need for a larger and better equipped building was manifested at public meetings held to discuss the situation, and a Committee was eventually formed to act in conjunction with the Trustees in seeking a solution to the difficulty.  A public appeal for funds to meet the cost of an extension raised £12,000, the British Red Cross Society being the largest individual subscriber with £3,000.  Tenders for building the extension were invited by Mr G Beaty, engineer, of Greenholme, Ashington, in June 1921 (The Builder, 17 June 1921, 783), and the re-opening ceremony was performed by Viscountess Ridley on 7 October 1922. That year saw the appointment of an assistant consulting surgeon, required since the hospital now provided all the requirements necessary on modern surgery, and in December an X-ray department was opened.  The need for the outpatients’ department had lessened with the increased number of panel and club patients. As an additional part of the building scheme, the house adjoining the hospital was bought and presented to the Trustees by the War Memorial Committee of the town for use as a Nurses’ Home on condition that provision was made in the hospital for the accommodation of private or paying patients.  As a result the hospital administrators agreed to set aside two small wards for this purpose, and these were furnished and equipped by the War Memorial Committee.  Money for ultra violet ray equipment was given in 1925, although it necessitated finding accommodation .

The need for larger premises was remarked on in 1929 and again in 1934 when it was observed that a hospital of 30 beds was not adequate for a population of 34,000.  In 1938 the state of the Building Fund was considered satisfactory, with two promises of £1,000 each from the Cowpen Coal Company and the Blyth Harbour Commission and an income of £60 per month particularly from work people.  Preliminary plans had been prepared by the architects Newcombe and Newcombe of Newcastle, and the Committee expected later in the year, when a more settled state of national affairs might exist, to make great progress, even to the extent of commencing building operations.  In 1939, however, it had to be reported that the building plans had had to be temporarily shelved. 

The Ministry of Health Hospital Survey published in 1946 recorded that the hospital had 36 beds but no room for extension.  The ground floor had two womens’ wards, men, children and private patients being on the first floor.  The wards were satisfactory and there was a good operating theatre suite and an X-ray room with a modern mobile unit. The physiotherapy department was in two very cramped rooms and there was no proper accommodation for outpatients, who had to be examined in the committee room.  On 5th July 1948 the hospital became part of the National Health Service, closing on 28 September 1987 when its patients were transferred to the new Blyth Community Hospital, which has been built on the site of the old railway sidings and Engine shed. The site of the old hospital is now occupied by the Thomas Knight Nursing Home. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey Report by Ian H Goodall, July 1993.]

CHOLLERTON

Barrasford Sanatorium (Newcastle upon Tyne and Northumberland Sanatorium) NY923 767 Historic England Building File: 102687

By 1904 suitable land for this sanatorium had been selected by the committee of the Newcastle and Northumberland Association for the prevention of consumption, a 60 acre site about 3.5 miles North of Hexham. The design by Messrs Nicholson and Dotchin of Newcastle agreed upon and £50,000 was the sum put forward as being sufficient for the erection and fitting out of the hospital, by this point in 1904 around £12,000 had already been assembled(Newcastle Evening Chronicle 15th August 1904). By February 1906 the work had been completed, carried out by Speirs and Co, Glasgow using their patented construction method. In the Hexham Courant for February 24th 1906 there is a good description of the hospital on the completion of the building:

‘… the buildings are in the form of a crescent, in two stories, the central portion being in the form of open air galleries on both floors, while the wings on either side are for males and females respectively – thirty males and twenty females. The centre of the building is raised three stories high, and the nurses are accommodated in the upper rooms. The whole building is lighted by electricity, generated in the engine room, and heated by steam radiators. Behind the main extension is the administrative department, with rooms for the resident medical officer, the matron, secretary, and others. In the rear is a large kitchen, fitted with steam cooking apparatus; and separated from this by a servery, is the dining hall, a lofty, airy room, well lighted, 50 feet long, 25 feet wide and 18 feet high. There is an entrance and an exit into and from the dining room directly to the grounds. The recreation hall adjoins the dining hall and is of similar dimensions. accommodation is provided for the servants in separate rooms arranged over the kitchen stores; and dispensary, pathological and consulting rooms are placed near the doctor’s quarters. There is accommodation in the main building for fifty patients; but extension may easily be made from the wing, and at a cost per patient that will be small in proportion to the number to be provided for. A neat little isolation hospital has been built at the top end of the site, so arranged as to provide two 2 bed wards for males and females respectively

there is further description of the services on site and then the fabric is described:

The foundations and walls of the buildings up to the ground floor level are of stone from Gunnerton quarry, and the whole of the area of the buildings is covered with concrete, to keep out the damp. All the stone walls and chimneys are covered with rough-cast. the roof is painted a rich tile red, the walls stone colour, the panels in the timber framing buff, and the woodwork green with cream sahes. The colours harmonise admirably, and the sanatorium makes a really pretty picture against the back-ground of heather and pines.

There is another broadly similar description in the Berwickshire News April 17th 1906, adding details about the corrugated iron covering on the walls and the use of ‘Uralite’ in the interior finish, a fire-resisting material, covering the tongue and groove panelling. A report after it had been open a year indicates that 49 patients used its services in that year. In 1920 there was discussion over the decision by the Sanitary Committee that Newcastle Council should take over the sanatorium and this went through (Newcastle Evening Chronicle 23 November 1920). Demand fell and in November 1959 only 35 of the 95 beds was occupied. The hospital closed in June 30th 1960 and the remaining patients transferred to Wooler Sanatorium (Newcastle Evening Chronicle 9 August 1961) and was sold by the Council in 1962, to be made into a caravan park.

Unfortunately on the 26th May 1963 oxy-acetylene being used by workmen demolishing the main building caused a fire and in the ensuing blaze the main building was destroyed. The firemen had struggled with exploded gas cylinders and the water supply, and had had to pump water in from two miles away (Newcastle Journal 27 May 1963). It is now the Barrasford Park Caravan park.

CORBRIDGE

Bridge End Maternity Hospital (now Lion Court) NY 989 640 Historic England Building File: 102270 part demolished

The hospital was located in a converted private house known as Ealesfield, and seems to have first opened in 1931. In 1938 the hospital was listed as Corbridge Maternity Hospital, a voluntary hospital with thirteen beds, open to all residents in the county. It was maintained by the County Nursing Association but with Northumberland County Council meeting deficiencies up to £800 a year.  Twenty-two general practitioners normally used the hospital for their patients, with consulting County Council obstetricians available. In 1946 it had one three-bed ward, two two-bed wards, five single wards and a one-bed observation ward.

The hospital was transferred to the NHS in 1948, the main building (the former Ealesfield House) had two wards, labour ward and duty room on the ground floor. On the first floor were three wards, the matron’s sitting room, a store and bathroom. A single-storeyed addition contained a bathroom, and another similar extension with a lean-to roof against the N gable contained another ward, with direct access to the labour ward.  A pediment above the window on the main W frontage contains a carving of the seal of Corbridge. 

Behind the ward were a series of mainly single-storeyed additions, rendered to the N facing the river.  These contained the kitchen, scullery and laundry on the N, with behind these the dining room and nursery.  To the east a two-storeyed block contained a bedroom with a private ward to the rear on the ground floor and an office and matron’s bedroom above.  A wide strip of garden separated the main hospital from two late 19th-century terraced houses also used by the hospital, probably for staff accommodation. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey Report by Ian R Pattison, November 1992.]

Dilston Hall Maternity Home NY975 632

Situated 2km south-west of Corbridge, Dilston Hall was built in 1835. In 1874 Dilston was bought by the 1st Baron Allendale, who took residence in 1889. At the outbreak of war in 1939 the Hall was adapted for Maternity use. Dining- and drawing-rooms were fitted out as wards; two nine-bed wards, one of five beds, four of four beds, and one each of three and two beds. (Newcastle Evening Chronicle 24 October 1939). The newspaper article indicated that several of the nurses came from the Princess Mary Maternity Home in Newcastle, which also supplied some 40 beds complete with linen, and emphasises the informality of the establishment: a ‘home from a home’ established from the ‘rambling old Dilston Hall’.

The Maternity Home continued after the war and remained until 1965 when it transferred to a new unit at Hexham General Hospital. After this the Hall was used for the education of children with learning difficulties and in 1971, MENCAP became the owners of Dilston Hall, including the Church and ruined castle. In 2014 Cambian Group bought the Hall and it is now Cambian Dilston College.

Charlotte Straker Cottage Hospital (now Charlotte Straker House) NY 988 647 Historic England Building File: 102269

The hospital, opened in 1918 in a former private house, was presented to Corbridge and district by J H Straker in memory of his wife Charlotte Maria Straker, who died in 1917.  Straker, of Howden Dene, was an industrial magnate also responsible for improving the Tyne Bridge in 1881-2 and building a new church on his estate at Stagshaw.  An OS map of 1920 suggests that it was formed out a late 19th-century house.  The long site backs on to St. Helen’s Lane but access is from Stagshaw Road.  Prior Terrace, on the corner of Stagshaw Road and St. Helen’s Lane, remained in separate ownership. 

The site permitted expansion to the east and in 1932 the committee of the Charlotte Straker Cottage Hospital proposed an emergency ward, an operating theatre and an X-ray room.  W Dixon and Sons of Newcastle-on-Tyne were appointed as architects and tenders were invited for the extensions, which were executed by M Hogarth and Sons of Corbridge (The Builder, 23 December 1932, p.1077; 6 January 1933, p.32; 3 March 1933, p.394; 7 April 1933, p.606).  In 1938 it was provided with 18 beds.  Four general practitioners from Corbridge and Stocksfield attended to their own patients in the hospital, but only one did his own operations.  It catered mainly for surgical cases. A mortuary not indicated on the 1951 survey plans, was later added to the east of the extensions.  The hospital was taken over by the Charlotte Straker Project Trust and renamed Charlotte Straker House, in a report in the Newcastle Journal 15 February 1985 about its proposed closure it is described as an Old People’s Hospital.  It is now a nursing home, and has a large modern west wing. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey Report by Ian R Pattison, November 1992.]

HALTWHISTLE

Haltwhistle War Memorial Hospital (Haltwhistle and District War Memorial Hospital) NY 705 641 Historic England Building File: 102273

The decision to make a hospital Haltwhistle and District’s memorial to those who fell in the First World War was taken immediately after the end of the war, since a wooden tablet on the wall of the original entrance hall of the hospital records the names of thirty-six individuals and bodies `whose contributions have helped to establish this Hospital’.  The donations were made between 1919 and 1922, and it was in 1922 that Haltwhistle and District War Memorial Hospital opened.   It was established in Greencroft, a former private house set in extensive grounds on the N side of Westgate.  Adaptations were made to the house and its outbuildings to enable it to be used as a hospital. 

A War Memorial in the form of a stone Celtic cross with associated tablets was unveiled on land in front of the hospital on 13 November 1926, and a photograph which was included in the official programme for the occasion, and which was also issued as a postcard shows house and the sanitary tower added to its W side as part of its conversion to hospital use.

The house continued in use little altered until it was decided in 1938 to build extensions costing £8,000 and designed by Oliver and Leeson, architects, of Newcastle upon Tyne (The Builder, 27 May 1938, p.1060).  A tender for the extensions, now specified as a Maternity Hospital, was accepted in 1939 (The Builder, 24 March 1939, p.598).  Work probably went ahead that year, with a maternity block was built to the E of the original hospital building.  The Ministry of Health Hospital Survey published in 1946 noted that the maternity unit `added since 1938′ had six beds.  The block had one four-bed ward, two single rooms and a labour room, as well as single-bed reception and observation wards.  The old house, to which the maternity block was attached by a corridor or covered way, was described in the Survey as the `general section’.  It contained two men’s wards and a `useful theatre suite’ on the ground floor and a women’s ward and private room on the first floor.  The hospital had no X-ray plant at this date, although it was proposed to provide one. An entrance block was infilled between the old house and the maternity block, on the site of the linking covered way, in 1968. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey Report, written by Ian H Goodall, December 1992.]

The former hospital buildings have since been demolished to make way for a new hospital on the site, built in 2012-14.

HEBRON

Northgate Hospital (St Andrew’s Colony; Northgate and District Hospital) NZ 186 878 Historic England Building File: 102302

After the end of the First World War Northumberland looked to implement the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913, and a survey in 1919 put the number of mental defectives in Northumberland at about 250, many of whom needed institutional care.  Some were found places at Prudhoe Hall (see Historic England Building File: 102267), which had been developed as a joint enterprise by a number of north-eastern Poor Law Unions, but the Council’s Committee for the Care of the Mentally Defective soon realised that, in the long term, the County Council would have to establish its own institution.  A place was needed with facilities for education and training, equipped with workshops and gardens as well as with medical services.  The suggestion was made in 1924 that Cresswell Hall, which was unoccupied, should be bought and converted for this purpose, but doubts about the water supply and the dangers of mining subsidence delayed purchase, and when the Hall was sold to another body the County Council had to consider putting up an entirely new building. In 1928 the County Council decided to build its own institution, and chose a site at Northgate, just north of Morpeth, as the most suitable.  The Council required a great deal of detailed information, above all assurances that there would be a satisfactory water supply on the site, before committing itself to the building programme, and as a consequence it was not until the end of 1932 that the 100 acre site was bought for £9,100.

The original scheme for the mental institution had been for the accommodation of 1,000 patients at an estimated cost of £180,000, but it was reported in late 1932 that the number had been reduced to 300 patients (The Builder, 18 November 1932, 846).  Early in 1933 the County Council approved a scheme and also considered a proposal to borrow £68,900 to cover its cost (The Builder, 17 February 1933, 305; 17 March 1933, 461).  Detailed plans were submitted to the Board of Control in 1933 to build five blocks, including one for boys and one for girls, with the principal water supply from a borehole.  The Board tried to modify the Council’s plans by requiring a single heating system, from a central boiler house, for the entire complex, instead of equipping each block with a separate boiler house.  After some comparative studies a compromise was reached which provided shared heating systems for some of the buildings on the site. The new institution opened in February 1938 under the name of St Andrew’s Colony, its name chosen as a tribute to Alderman Andrew McHugh who, as Chairman of the Health Committee, had played a large part in the hospital’s creation.  The brochure recording the Official Opening of the Final Development of the Hospital by The Rt. Hon. Sir Keith Joseph on Friday 7th May 1971 includes a phased plan of the site and records that the Colony had accommodation for 300 mentally handicapped adults, ‘it being the intention to increase the number of beds over a period to provide for all patients from the county area’.

By 1941 there were over 400 patients at the Colony, and in 1944 Inspectors from the Board of Control commended its homely, happy atmosphere.  Trades and crafts were taught, and whenever possible patients were given some form of employment.  Women patients worked mainly in the kitchen and laundry, men in the attached farm and gardens; some patients went out daily to work in the neighbourhood.  Sewing classes were held for the women, enabling them to make some of their own clothes.  Part of the land was used for grazing bullocks; in 1942 piggeries were started. In 1948, on the inception of the National Health Service, the Colony was renamed Northgate and District Hospital.  Subsequent developments are noted in the 1971 Official Opening brochure, but the principal growth on the site took place in 1963-5 and 1968-71.  The site is now called Northgate Hospital. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey Report by Ian R Pattison, December 1992.]

HEXHAM

Hexham General Hospital (Hexham Union Workhouse; Hexham Emergency Hospital)  NY 941 640 Historic England Building File: 102271

Hexham Union Workhouse was built at Peth Head, on the eastern outskirts of Hexham, in 1839, and extensive additions and alterations costing about £8,000 were recorded as `fast drawing towards completion’ in late 1883 (Building News, 16 November 1883, p.785).  This work, designed by J H Morton, architect, of South Shields, comprised a new administrative block with master and matron’s rooms, dining hall, kitchen, scullery, bakery and six large storerooms, and new male and female sick wards.  The existing buildings were extensively altered at the same time, and a new mortuary was about to be provided.  In 1914, after the completion of the new work, the workhouse was recorded as having rooms for 330 inmates. The 1895 Ordnance Survey map shows the workhouse as extended, but also shows other buildings south of the main workhouse block which were evidently part the institution.  Only the southernmost of these now survives: now Fellbeck, a nurses’ home, it had been used as a children’s home when the site was a Public Assistance Institution.

During the Second World War a hospital was established as part of the Emergency Hospital Scheme on the land south of the main workhouse.  Known as Hexham Emergency Hospital, it was established in 1939, the first war casualties being admitted in 1940, and in 1943 additional huts were built (Hexham General Hospital 1989).  Lett and Quine (1946, 40) record that the hospital consisted of about 21 brick huts (in fact some were timber, others brick), 16 of which were ward huts for patients, the others containing the theatre and X-ray units, the physiotherapy department, accommodation for other accessory medical services, and some staff quarters.  The nurses’ home was `in the more modern part of the adjoining public assistance institution’.  Hexham Public Assistance Institution had been closed during the war and the buildings diverted to administrative uses (Ministry of Health Hospital Survey, 1946, p.46). The hospital became part of the National Health Service in 1948, and came to be known as Hexham General Hospital.  At some time Corbridge Road was cut through the middle of the site, separating what had been built as the main workhouse block from the Emergency Hospital. A new hospital was procured under a Private Finance Initiative (‘PFI’) contract in 2001. It was designed by Jonathan Bailey Associates and built by Bovis, Lend, Lease at a cost of £54 million. It was officially opened in January 2004. In what is described by the developers as a ‘sensitive redevelopment’ the workhouse site is currently in the process of being developed as housing. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey Report by Ian H Goodall, May 1993.]

Hexham War Memorial Hospital (St Wilfrid’s; Hexham and District War Memorial Hospital)  NY 936 637 Historic England Building File: 102272 demolished

The hospital was established at a meeting in February 1919.  St Wilfrid’s, a large 19th-century house in Eastgate, was proposed as suitable premises and was converted by a local surveyor, J W Pooley of Hexham.  The cost came to almost £12,000.  When the War Memorial Hospital was officially opened on Thursday 29 September 1921 by Prince Henry, the third son of the king and queen, it had already been in use `for some little time’ (Hexham Courant, 1 October 1921; the report contains a detailed description of the hospital).  The building is still identified as St. Wilfrid’s on the 1920 OS map.  Later additions include a maternity block of 1938, later used as an operating theatre wing, to the NW, and a small clinic in the SE angle.  Six Hexham general practitioners attended to their own patients, and in 1938 it provided 35 beds (Ministry of Health Hospital Survey, 1946). The site now has housing on it. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey Report by Ian R Pattison, November 1992.]

Hexham Convalescent Home NY 929 636 Historic England Building File: 102597

Plans for a Convalescent home to be built by the Cathedral Nurse and Loan Society were put forward in 1892, to take the place of their home at Shotley Bridge which had proved to be too small. By June 1893 the home was close to opening, although furniture still needed to be purchased (Newcastle Journal 21 June 1893). It finally opened on 26th of September of that year (Newcastle Courant 30th September 1893). By 1915 it was in the hands of the Red Cross, acting as the hospital for the 3rd Northumberland Voluntary Aid detachment. An annexe in Cotfield House on Hencoates opened in June 1917, with a gift from the Consett Iron Company of £100 for a Garden Hut with eight beds (Newcastle Journal 9 June 1917). It continued after the war as a convalescent home until the 1930s, becoming offices for the Ministry of Defence in WWII. Eventually it was converted to flats in 1947.

Hexham Isolation Hospital NY 942 637 demolished

Discussion about the need for a separate Isolation hospital had started as early as 1877, with a site adjacent to the Workhouse suggested (Hexham Courant 5 May 1877). This was raised again in 1897 without conclusion. Eventually in 1907 a 2.3 acre site was purchased from the Chief Medical Officer, Daniel Jackson Esq. Details about the hospital are hard to come by, but certainly it contained 16 beds. By the 1940s the site was abandoned or ‘virtually closed’ (Ministry of Health Hospital Survey, 1946, p.44). It was demolished and developed for housing probably in the 1960s.

Newbrough Lodge, NY 865 684

Briefly used as a convalescent home for children from 1940 by the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle following a fire at their Greycourt Convalescent Home. It had closed by 1946

MORPETH

Morpeth Cottage Hospital (Loansdean Cottage Hospital) NZ 198 849 Historic England Building File: 102308 demolished

The new Cottage Hospital to replace the previous Morpeth cottage hospital in Wansbeck House, No. 1, Dogger Bank (see Historic England Building File: 102305), had been considered in October 1928, and a building committee appointed in October 1929.   Money was raised by various means, including carnivals.  In 1931 tenders were invited by the Victoria Cottage Hospital and District Nursing Association to erect a hospital on the glebe ground.  The plans by C Franklin Murphy of Newgate Street, Morpeth, were approved by the Town Council shortly afterwards (The Builder, 5 June 1931). The builder was James Wilson of Morpeth, who submitted a tender of £4,777 7s. 11d. (The Builder, 17 July 1931, p.129). The new hospital opened on 30 June 1932 (Morpeth Herald, 1 July 1932).  The medical staff consisted of three local practitioners and an honorary consulting surgeon. Ten beds were added since as part of extensions in 1939, raising the number of beds to twenty-three, seven of which were in private single wards (Ministry of Health Hospital Survey, 1946, p.37).  This was funded by a £3,000 bequest in memory of Robert and Margaret Oliver in 1938, and the hospital then provided two public wards, one with eight beds and the other six beds, two private wards and six semi-private wards.

Considerable enlargements have taken place since 1948.  A 26-bedded ward was added to the north of existing building in 1968, and a three-storeyed building was erected to the east in 1969 at a cost of £250,000 providing a further 60 beds, a physiotherapy department and a new kitchen block.  An Occupational Therapy Unit was built with a £80,000 legacy in 1983, and the 1968 ward was substantially extended in 1991. The hospital closed in 2013 when a new NHS Care Centre opened at Mount Haggs Field. The site was cleared in 2015 and redeveloped as housing and a Care Home (see MorpethNewsTV ). [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey report by Ian R. Pattison, May 1994.]

Morpeth Isolation Hospital NZ 187 848 Historic England Building File: 102307

The grandstand on Morpeth Common was converted into an isolation hospital by 1899   It is marked on the 1921 OS map to the N of the rifle butts and NW of Star Plantation.  In 1938 the hospital, owned by Morpeth Joint Hospital Board, contained twelve beds.  It was still in use in 1946, but was described as unsuitable for the modern treatment of infectious diseases (Ministry of Health Hospital Survey 1946, p.26, p.36, pp.48-9).  Buildings were still shown on the site in 1980, but not identified as belonging to a hospital.  Partly Demolished. (See MorpethNewsTV showing a glimpse of the surviving building in 2021.) [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey Report by Ian R Pattison June 1993.]

Morpeth Union Workhouse NZ 196 862 Historic England Building File: 102306 demolished

The workhouse was built in 1866-8 to designs by F R Wilson, architect, of Alnwick, replacing one shown in much the same position on the 1859 OS map.  The almshouses in Cottingwood Lane, also marked on the map, had been the original workhouse; neither site is identified on the 1826 town plan.  In 1865 it was reported that plans had been obtained from Wilson the previous autumn.  A site had been bought, presumably adjacent to the existing one, and building was to begin shortly (The Builder, 27 May 1865, p.377).  Tenders for demolition of the old and the erection of the new workhouse were received in August (The Builder, 19 August 1865, p.600).  The foundation stone was laid on 21 February 1866.  The contractors were Middlemass and Stafford (The Builder, 3 March 1866, p.153).  The workhouse, said to have been erected in 1868, was probably completed that year.  It held 150 inmates. In 1913 the Guardians decided to purchase seven acres of land on the Grange House Estate for £1,000 to be used as a workhouse infirmary site, and received sanction to borrow the money in December (The Builder, 4 July 1913, p.17; 19 December 1913, p.682).  Grange House lay some way to the west of the workhouse, on the north bank of the Wansbeck.  As there is considerable discrepancy between the workhouse capacity and the 18 beds provided by Morpeth Public Assistance Institution in 1938, it is not clear whether the lower figure refers to a purpose-built infirmary on this detached site.  The workhouse was used as offices by the county council during the Second World War and was demolished in 1951.

The workhouse comprised three distinct blocks.  An entrance block on the Newgate Street frontage had a U-shaped plan, with a central way through to the main building and end wings to the rear.  It probably housed the receiving wards, board room and the usual offices for the Guardians.  The main workhouse building was a rectangular block with a canted bay to the rear.  It was brick built, five storeys high, and appears in a photograph taken from across the River Wansbeck.  It would have provided quarters for the workhouse master and the matron as well as the usual male and female wards for the inmates. A rear block may have been the original workhouse infirmary.  It had an elongated T-shaped plan, with an off-centre rear wing which may have been a sanitary tower.  A purpose-built workhouse infirmary at Grange House, for which a site was being acquired in 1913, has not been identified and may not have been built. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey Report by Ian R Pattison June 1993.]

St George’s Hospital (Northumberland Pauper Lunatic Asylum; Northumberland County Mental Hospital) NZ 202 870 Historic England Building File: 102304

Italianate mental hospital built 1853-9 to designs by Henry Welch, succeeded by Thomas Robson in 1858, consisting of the superintendent’s house and matching ward wings for male and female patients.  Additions in 1868 by Francis Charlton.  Infirmaries built in 1872.  Farm buildings and laundry completed 1877.  Six cottages for married staff built 1880.  Chapel claimed to have been built in 1865 but dated 1884.  Two new wings, a dining-room, kitchen, administration block and a house for the steward added 1885-9.  Wings added to both infirmaries to designs by W P Ault in 1890-2.  Mortuary and chief attendant’s cottage built 1894-5.  Three villa blocks for male patients designed by John Cresswell built in 1900-3.  Small isolation hospital built 1903.  House for farm bailiff built 1910, and twelve staff cottages known as East Loan built in 1912.  Deputy medical superintendent’s house erected 1924.  Nurses’ home designed by J A Bean built 1926-8, two staff cottages built 1935 and five staff houses and further extensions to farm buildings built in 1938.  Admission hospital proposed in 1936 but not built until 1959.

The long stay wards closed in 1995 and the remaining services continued until 2006, when on the north part of the site a new mental health unit was built; St George’s Park, opened in 2006, built by the Robertson group at a cost of £27 million. In 2015 plans were passed and work started on developing the rest of the site in a £90 million scheme to build 374 houses, with the intention of using existing buildings if structurally possible. This seems to have been achieved and a third phase of development with 94 houses and an 84-apartment block for supported living was passed in 2023 (see Chroniclelive) [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey Report by Ian R Pattison 1995.]

Victoria Cottage Hospital (now Wansbeck House) NZ 194 863 Historic England Building File: 102305

Following a plea in a letter to the Morpeth Herald in 1891 for a hospital with four beds, fund-raising efforts undertaken by the existing Dispensary were devoted towards a proposed cottage hospital.  The first temporary cottage hospital in Morpeth occupied the Home of Rest behind the parish church from 1897 to 1898.  In November 1898 Abbey View House in Buller’s Green, at the junction of Newgate Street and Dogger Bank, was rented for £32 a year.  It provided separate male and female wards, each with two beds and two cots for children, and was staffed by a nurse, a probationer and a servant.  The organisation which ran it probably also provided home nursing, and so was known as the Victoria Cottage Hospital and District Nursing Association.  The building, accommodating only eight patients, half of them children, proved inadequate and so in 1910 the hospital moved a short distance to Wansbeck House in Dogger Bank, a three-storeyed house built in 1867.  As the later Cottage Hospital opened in 1932 (Historic England Building File 102308), initially only accommodated eleven patients, the move in 1910 probably gave little more space, possibly allowing the number of patients to rise to about ten.  The main disadvantage of the new premises was the need to put some patients on upper floors, involving the nursing staff in frequent use of stairs.

Wansbeck House served as a cottage hospital until a purpose-built hospital was erected on another site.  The building then reverted to being a private house, subsequently the house, renamed Purdy House, was converted into flats. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey Report by Ian R Pattison, July 1993.]

PONTELAND

Ponteland Hospital (Castle Ward Union Workhouse; Ponteland Poor Law Institution) NZ 165 733 Historic England Building File: 102357 demolished

The Castle Ward Union Workhouse was built in 1848 .  Unspecified additions were made to the workhouse in 1910 (The Builder, 26 November 1910, p.669).  It was available for 120 inmates, and had a master, matron, medical officer and chaplain. According to Kelly’s Directory, in 1911 there were 7 officers and 96 inmates in Castle Ward Union Workhouse and 280 children and 26 officials in Newcastle Parish Workhouse Cottage Homes. 

Only two blocks on a site adjacent to the workhouse were identified as cottage homes on the 1913 OS map.  They do not seem to be the same as the cottage homes for destitute children being erected at Ponteland in 1901, which stood on a 70-acre site and consisted of the superintendent’s house, a large block for forty children, three smaller blocks for thirty children each, and an isolation hospital (The Builder, 22 June 1901, 612).  As the Ponteland Public Assistance Institution, the workhouse provided 33 beds for the chronic sick in 1938, although in 1946 eighty beds were available (Ministry of Health Hospital Survey 1946, pp. 36, 46).

The hospital was closed in March 1993 and went up for sale in July of that year (Newcastle Evening Chronicle 5 July 1993). It now appears to be completely demolished and the site developed for housing. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey Report by Ian R Pattison, 1994.]

PRUDHOE

Prudhoe Hospital (Prudhoe Hall Colony) NZ 106 619 Historic England Building File: 102267 demolished

Prudhoe Hall, a seat of the Liddell family built c.1870, opened in 1914 as Prudhoe Hall Colony, the Northern Counties Joint Poor-Law Committee’s ‘colony for the feeble minded’, in 1930-1 being purchased by the North Eastern County Boroughs Joint Board.  J H Morton and J G Burrell, joint architects, planned the original colony on the village system, and shortly after the First World War six two-storeyed patients’ villas, a hospital, staff housing, workshops, recreation hall, kitchen, laundry and boiler house were built in partial completion of it.  In 1932 work began on buildings designed by J H Morton and Son: two two-storeyed villas and a single-storeyed ward block, a further hospital, a school, staff housing and a new recreation hall and kitchen block were built. 

The hospital grew substantially after 1948, with a planned four-phase development completed in 1963, including school building, assembly hall and additional ‘villas’ for the residents, designed by S. W. Milburn & Prtners in association with the regional architect P. H. Knighton. (See also workhouses.org).

The site closed in 2005 and in 2011 Ferndene, a purpose-built inpatient unit for children and young people was opened, located in the south-aest corner of the site. All the former hospital buildings, apart from Prudhoe Hall, have been demolished and part of the site developed for housing. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey Report by Goodhall, March 1993, The Hospital, December 1963, pp.737-40.]

ROTHBURY

Coquetdale Cottage Hospital (Coquet House) NU 054 016 Historic England Building File: 102313

Coquet House, a three-storeyed boarding house built in 1872, became a cottage hospital in 1905.  The property included adjacent cottages, one of which became the doctor’s surgery.  A sanitary tower was added in 1908-9 designed by Mr Murphy, probably Charles Murphy, of Morpeth.  The hospital served a large area, described in the 1940s as ‘wild moorland country with a sparse population’. At that time it had 17 beds, in four wards of four beds and one single-bed ward. There was no operating theatre or X-ray facility.

A maternity wing was opened in 1946 closing in 1975 after the new Area Health Authority took over management. Soon only convalescent and Geriatric care survived. In 1993, the hospital became part of the new Cheviot and Wansbeck Trust. The following year, however, plans were laid to build a new Community Hospital. The hospital was eventually sold and, in 2007, the new hospital was opened on Whitton Bank Rd. The old hospital is now converted to residential use. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey Report by Ian R Pattison 1993; Ministry of Health survey of hospitals of the North East of England, 1946.]

Rothbury Union Workhouse (now Silverton House and Lodge) NU 063 012 Historic England Building File: 102314

The first workhouse as Rothbury, shown on the 1st edition OS map on the east road into the town, was replaced in the 1870s or 1880s by the present group of buildings. In 1905 the Rothbury Guardians invited tenders for a water supply to the workhouse (The Builder, 10 June 1905, p.643).  In 1914 the population of Rothbury included four officers and 44 inmates in the union workhouse, which was designed to hold 50 inmates.  There was a master, a matron and a medical officer.  It appears as Rothbury Poor Law Institution on the 1920s OS map.  In 1932 it was decided by Northumberland County Public Assistance Committee to convert Rothbury Institution to a home for ‘mental defectives’.  The architect for the scheme was the County Architect, W W Tasker (The Builder, 8 April 1932, p.661; 20 May 1932, p.913).  It was renamed Silverton House, and served as a home for ‘young mental defectives’.  In 1941 there were forty-five patients including fourteen ‘epileptics’.  By 1945 the number had risen to sixty-three.  Some education was provided, although there was no qualified teacher on the staff.  It housed children until 1968, when they were transferred to Northgate and replaced by twenty ‘higher grade mentally handicapped ladies’. It is now a residential property. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey Report by Ian R Pattison 1994.]

Whitton Tower, (The Ethel Watson Convalescent Home), NU 056 010

In use as a convalescent home for children from Newcastle General Hospital from 1937 to 1983. In the 1940s it had 30 beds. See whittontower.com

SLALEY

Wooley Hospital (Wooley Sanatorium) NY 966 596 Historic England Building File: 102268 largely demolished

The site of approximately seventy acres was acquired by Northumberland County Council before the First World War.  In 1919 the Ministry of Health gave the County Council permission to build a sanatorium there for the treatment of tuberculosis.  No buildings are shown on the site on the 1920 OS map.  The first patients were received in 1922, but the official opening took place in 1923.  The final cost was £55,804.  In 1925 additions were made to Wooley Sanatorium and a house erected for the Medical Superintendent, probably to designs by J A Bean, the County Surveyor to Northumberland County Council (The Builder, 27 November 1925, p.786).  A separate block for advanced cases was considered, but in 1928 it was decided to treat such patients at the Wingrove Hospital instead.

During the Second World War the sanatorium was requisitioned as a casualty hospital, but the county authorities retained ninety beds for tuberculosis patients. In 1946 there were still 180 beds available for pulmonary tuberculosis.  The single-storeyed pavilion wards contained 108 beds for men and 72 for women.  There was a fixed unit in the X-ray department.  There was no operating theatre, but thoracic surgery was carried out at Hexham Cottage Hospital where the sanatorium retained two beds and patients were visited daily by a resident medical officer.  There were two resident medical staff, a medical superintendent and a deputy medical superintendent, and a visiting dentist.  Alterations to the nurses’ home costing £4,500 were made in 1949 by H Wallace and Son (The Builder, 31 December 1948, p.781).  The tuberculosis sanatorium was later used as a convalescent home and before closure had functioned as a geriatric hospital.  Most of the hospital buildings apart from the staff housing on or near the main road were cleared in about 1975. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey Report by Ian R Pattison, November 1992.]

STANNINGTON

Mona Taylor Maternity Hospital

As yet I have been unable to locate this hospital, although I believe it was near to the Thomas Taylor Homes. However, I can’t find those either. The maternity hospital had 24 beds and four special care cots in 1966.

St Mary’s Hospital (Gateshead Borough Lunatic Asylum; Stannington Hospital) NZ 181 811 Historic England Building File: 102631 largely demolished

Opened in 1914 and designed by G.T. Hine and H. Carter Pegg in and echelon plan, constructed of red brick with yellow brick banding, multiple-paned sashes, concrete lintels and with grey slate roofs. The hospital became the Gateshead Borough Lunatic Asylum in 1920. There were substantial additions that were completed by 1939 : ten further pairs of staff cottages, two additional blocks flanking the main building, male and female detached working chronic blocks and a large admission and treatment hospital with convalescent villas at the north of the site.

The site was requisitioned during the Second World war and a hutted Emergency medical services hospital (later the Burnholme unit) was built to the north of the admission unit, which was also requisitioned. With the advent of the NHS in 1948 came a change of name, to St Mary’s, after the parish church of Stannington. The site remained open until 1995 much of the main site was demolished for housing in 2015 with the exceptions of four former staff houses known locally as The Villas, as well as the former gate-keeping lodge, Chief Medical Superintendent’s Home and the Administration block, now converted to a Hotel.

Stannington Children’s Hospital (Stannington Sanatorium) NZ 188 819 Historic England Building File: 102303

The foundation stone of the children’s sanatorium and farm colony at Stannington, which was being erected by the Newcastle and Gateshead Poor Children’s Rescue Agency, was laid in September 1905 and the children’s sanatorium was opened during 1907.  The architects were D M and W T Spence of Shotley Bridge. The 1905 description notes that the sanatorium was to be 260 feet long and divided into three sections – the administrative block in the centre with the boys’ section on the right and the girls’ section on the left.  The farm colony was to be on a site 200 yards from the sanatorium, with accommodation for boys working on the farm.  It was to be of similar construction to the sanatorium and be 140 feet long.  The sanatorium was to have accommodation for 64 children, and the boys’ convalescent home was to give shelter to 60 additional invalids, and the farmhouse, with the dormitories it was proposed to build on to an existing building, was to provide room for 20 lads.  The cost, including the 173 acre site, was to be about £9,843.  The opening announcement in 1907 recorded that work cost £14,300 and noted that the sanatorium faced south, had hollow brick walls to the front and stone, for stability, to the rear.

In 1910 tenders for additions to the Children’s Sanatorium, designed by D M Spence of Shotley Bridge, were invited and a contract for £3,324 5s 10d was awarded. In August 1910 the foundation of the Lady Stephenson Wing was laid.  Tenders for adaptations to the Boys’ Holiday Home at Stannington, part of the farm colony, were invited in 1914.  The extent of the site in 1921 is represented on a map of that year. Unspecified work was undertaken in 1932 and 1936.  A survey conducted in 1938 recorded that by then the sanatorium accommodated 310 child patients, of whom about 100 suffered from pulmonary and 200 from bone and joint tuberculosis.  There were a number of wards with good verandas, permitting classification by sex, age and type of disease, and ample school-rooms, rest-rooms, etc.  At the outbreak of war the Emergency Health Service erected huts with a peace-time capacity of 260 beds adjoining the sanatorium, but the whole site was shortly afterwards taken over by the Air Ministry.  The work of the sanatorium was carried on in temporary premises at Hexham Hydro until it was able to reoccupy its own buildings in 1945. In 1981 the Area Health Authority announced its intention to close the Stannington Children’s Hospital.  This occurred in 1984 and the buildings were finally demolished in 1992. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey report, written 1993-4 by Ian Goodall.]

---