BAGNALL

Highlands Hospital (North Staffordshire Joint Smallpox Hospital; Bagnall Isolation Hospital; Bagnall Hospital) SJ 925 505, BF102732 (demolished)

Built in timber as an Infectious diseases hospital in 1890, although there is no sign of it on the 1898 25 inch OS, it was rebuilt in 1906 as a Smallpox hospital. Later it became a hospital for children with Tuberculosis and in 1959 it was renamed The Highlands, serving patients with learning disabilities. There were plans in 1990 to rehome the residents (Staffordshire Sentinel 17th January 1990) and the site seems to have been put up for sale in 1991 and again in 1992. In 2007 the site was redeveloped as ‘housing-with-care’ , named Bagnall Heights, a low-rise complex of homes for the over 55s.

BARTON-UNDER-NEEDWOOD

Barton-under-Needwood Cottage Hospital SK 186 182 BF101472 (demolished)

Built as a cottage hospital in 1879 it later included a GP’s surgery. In 2007 it was replaced by Barton Cottage, a care home with 12 beds.

BERKSWICH

Sister Dora Convalescent Hospital, Brocton Road SJ 973 208 BF101475. (Demolished, Dora Rose Care Home built on site)

Two-storey convalescent home of 1884. The building was funded from the royalties from Margaret Lonsdale’s book “Sister Dora” published in 1880. Dorothy Pattison, or Sister Dora, was famous for her work nursing the poor in a hospital in Walsall. The Hospital was opened by Lady Stamer on 19 April 1884 and Margaret Lonsdale became its Matron, having trained as a nurse at Guys Hospital. The hospital was intended primarily for Walsall patients, had sixteen beds, and was open for only eight months of the year. From February 1915 a limited number of convalescent solders were admitted and then in December 1917 it was taken over by the Military Authorities until the end of the war when it was handed back to the Committee of Management. It was later used as a rest home for the elderly until it closed in 2016 and was demolished in September 2018. The site was redeveloped as a care home: Dora Rose Care Home.

BIDDULPH

Biddulph Grange Orthopaedic Hospital (now Biddulph Grange) SJ 892 592 BF 92178 (hospital buildings demolished)

In 1923 a Hospital for ‘the crippled children of East Lancashire’ was established in wooden buildings in the grounds of Biddulph Grange, a country house built in 1896 in ‘Heavy Baronial style’ on the site of the original 1868-9 house that had been destroyed in a fire. The wooden wards were replaced in the 1930s , when the Grange also became part of the hospital. The operating theatre was situated in the house and a school was established for long-stay children. The National Trust acquired the estate in the 1980s and the hospital closed in 1991.

BRERETON AND RAVENHILL

Rugeley Hospital – see below under Rugely.

BURNTWOOD

St Matthew’s Hospital (Second Staffordshire County Asylum; Burntwood Asylum) SK 077 095 101405 (largely demolished)

Founded as the Second Staffordshire County Asylum in 1864 and designed by William Lambie Moffat, it was one of three lunatic asylums built in the county. The plan was for the asylum to house 500 patients, but it was later expanded to provide a capacity for 1302 beds.

The asylum complex included the main facility, an electricity plant, gas works, bakery, fire department, farm, mortuary, landscaped and vegetable gardens and cemetery. During the Second World War the asylum took in emergency civilian and military patients. In 1948, the hospital was transferred to the National Health Service and officially became St Matthew’s Hospital.

The hospital closed in 1995. Most buildings were demolished and the site was redeveloped for housing. The Administrative block was retained and repurposed as housing and a Nursery. [For further details about the asylum and photographs see here]

BURTON UPON TRENT

Burton District Hospital, Belvedere Road (Burton upon Trent Union Workhouse).  SK 234 244, BF101407 (largely demolished, Queen’s Hospital built on the site)

This large workhouse was erected to replace the earlier Scott and Moffatt building in Wetmore Road. It was designed in 1880 by J. H. Morton of South Shields to accommodate 500 paupers and opened in 1884 comprising a large section for the ordinary poor, a school section and a detached infirmary. From 1930, when its administration passed to Burton upon Trent Corporation, it developed as a hospital and was transferred to the National Health Service in 1948. New buildings have since taken the place of some of the original blocks, including the old infirmary.

Burton upon Trent General Hospital, New Street (Burton General Infirmary). SK 246 228, BF101408 (demolished)

This sprawling general hospital was first established on this site in 1868-9 and piecemeal development over the following century have left an incoherent group of mismatched buildings. Edward Holmes erected the original block, to which various additions were made until, in 1896-9, Aston Webb was commissioned to extend and reconstruct the buildings.

By 1900 the infirmary comprised an attractive group of red brick, largely two-storey, buildings with an administration block on the north side fronting Duke street, a ward wing, kitchen and laundry in the middle and an out-patients’ department on the south facing New Street.

The extensions on either side of the out-patients’ department were largely in keeping with Webb’s buildings and this remained a handsome group. The large ward block added c.1940 alongside what remained of the administration block, and Holford House, a nurses’ home of similar date, erected on Orchard Street, dominated the earlier buildings with their oppressive utilitarianism. 

Burton upon Trent General Hospital, photographed in May 1993 © H. Blakeman

Despite the cluttered site, the buildings were of considerably greater interest than the housing that has been built in its place, and it is a sad that none of the hospital was retained.

CANNOCK CHASE

Cannock Chase Hospital, Brunswick Road SJ 980 106

Present NHS hospital, opened in 1991.

White Lodge Hospital, New Penkridge Road SJ 970 106 BF 102043 (building extant)

Established in a converted house, operating in the 1960s-70s.

CHEDDLETON

St Edward’s Psychiatric Hospital (Staffordshire County Asylum; Cheddleton Hospital) SJ 974 535 BF 101575 (much demolished, parts of original complex converted to housing)

The most impressive surviving elements of the hospital are the water tower, administration block and the former hospital villas on the northern periphery of the site. The view from the south makes visual sense of the complex, but to the rear it is a strange warren, the red-brick, two-storey patient’s blocks bearing a patchwork of white-painted rendered areas where their past attached wings and corridors have been removed.

HAMMERWICH

Hammerwich Hospital (Hammerwich Cottage Hospital) SK 058 081 101476 (demolished)

KINVER

Prestwood Chest Hospital (Prestwood House; Prestwood House Sanatorium) SO 864 862 BF 102736 (hospital blocks demolished, retirement housing complex built on the site in 1999.)

LEEK

Alsop Memorial Cottage Hospital SJ 986 566 BF 102255 (extant as of 2025, now Sugden House and mews, converted to flats.)

Moorlands Hospital (Leek Union Workhouse) SJ 995 562 BF 100879 (largely extant)

LICHFIELD

Lichfield Victoria Hospital SK 112 088 BF 101474 (demolished)

Lichfield Victoria Nursing Home and Cottage Hospital (Lichfield Victoria Nursing Home), ?in Sandford Street, SK 115 094 BF 101473

(Earlier incarnation of the above? A hospital marked on 1920s OS that had become a clinic (15 Sandford St) in the 1960s-70s. There has been some rebuilding on the street frontage.)

St Michael’s Hospital (Lichfield Union Workhouse) SK 126 098 BF 100877 (part demolished)

The original workhouse fronting Trent Valley Road is largely extant (now St Michael’s Court hospital), the infirmary wings were demolished, together with other ancillary buildings on the to make way for the new community hospital built to the rear of the site (the Samuel Johnson Community Hospital)

LOGGERHEADS

Cheshire Joint Sanatorium (Burnt Wood Sanatorium) SJ 735 355 BF 102733 (all demolished apart from some former staff houses)

Site has been developed with housing.

LONGTON

Longton Cottage Hospital SJ 919 423, BF 101580 (extant and still Longton Cottage Hospital in 2025)

Longton Cottage Hospital (later Mount Pleasant Mission Chapel) SJ 918 430 BF 101580 (demolished)

NEWCASTLE-UNDER-LYME

Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Infectious Diseases Hospital SJ 847 454, BF 102734 (demolished)

The site has been developed for housing (around Balcombe Close). The original isolation hospital built in the late 1870s was replaced with new and larger buildings after 1900. The site next to the cemetery was no an usual choice for a local authority infectious diseases hospital, not out of any insensitivity to the patients, but because land was more easily obtainable for such a hospital being less desirable for housing.

RUGELEY

Levett Convalescent Home, Church Street SK 043 185 (building extant, returned to private residence)

Established by the 1920s in a private house.

Rugeley Home and Cottage Hospital, Brereton Road BF 101471 (demolished); (Rugeley District Hospital and Dispensary) SK 047 173 BF 102042 (demolished) – check sites

The hospital has been demolished to make way for a nursing home (Briar Hill House). Built as a cottage hospital in 1871 on land donated by the Earl of Lichfield, to designs by W A Bonney. The wards, dispensary, administration and domestic accommodation were all in a single two-storeyed building; the laundry and mortuary were separate.  An operating theatre and ward wing were added between 1900 and 1921 and a single-storeyed addition to the south-east of the hospital may date from the second quarter of the 20th century.  It is brick built with concrete lintels and has a series of rooms of different sizes.  It has been extended to the front in recent times. The hospital was demolished in the early 1990s and the site developed as a care home and housing. [Source: RCHME Hospital Survey report, written by Ian H Goodall, May 1991.]

STAFFORD

Coton Hill Hospital (Coton Hill Institution for the Insane) SJ 934 237 BF 101598 (demolished to make way for Stafford County Hospital)

The buildings stood until the late 1970s/very early 80s. All of the original asylum was demolished apart from the chapel and a few other ancillary buildings near by. The new general hospital was built to the standard Nucleus plan, as were most new NHS hospitals in the 1980s.

Stafford County Hospital SJ 934 237

The present general hospital for the area, a nucleus-plan general hospital opened 1983 on the site of Coton Hill Hospital.

Staffordshire General Infirmary, Foregate Street (Stafford General Infirmary). SJ 919 237, BF 101409 (part demolished)

Founded in two houses in the Foregate of Stafford in 1766, this institution later moved to a purpose-built hospital erected to the designs of Benjamin Wyatt in 1770-72. The central portion of that building survives in the present infirmary, which is largely the work of Sir Aston Webb, who carried out extensive additions and alterations in 1891-7. Webb’s plans involved demolishing all but the central three-storeyed, seven-bay block of the eighteenth century infirmary, which was converted into the new administration department, and adding to this two ward wings of two storeys. Later a nurses’ home was erected to the north, designed by E. Bower Norris (1927), and further extensions were carried out on the western side of the site by Webb. In 1948 the infirmary was transferred to the National Health Service and was partially superseded by the District General Hospital at Coton Hill built in the 1980s.

More recently the site has been redeveloped as a retail park. Parts of the original infirmary buildings fronting Foregate Street were retained – the original central portion and the stub at the angle of the ward wings – five bays or the original thirteen, not including the sanitary annexes. In effect, the nightingale wards were amputated from the ancillary service rooms by the entrance to the ward. Until about 2010 part of the building at least was occupied as offices of Stafford’s Social Services, but by 2012 the buildings seem to have been refurbished (including painting the rendering with cream-coloured paint) and put up to let. The ‘to-let’ sign was still standing in the most recent Google Street View photographs from August 2024.

St George’s Hospital (Staffordshire County Asylum) SJ 924 238 BF 101583 (largely demolished)

The southern range of the original County Asylum has been converted to housing (grandly named St George’s Mansions). It has been shorn of its northern ranges and many of its extensions, while the present St George’s Hospital has been developed on the site of the post-war admissions unit to the south-east.

STOKE-ON-TRENT

Bucknall Hospital, Eaves Lane (Hanley, Stoke and Fenton Joint Infectious Diseases Hospital). SJ 910 480,  BF 101124 (demolished)

This large hospital for infectious diseases was established in 1885-6 when the first five blocks were built to the designs of G. W. Bradford. One of these was a temporary ward block which was later demolished. From 1898 to 1930 the rest of the ward pavilions were added and the administration block gradually enlarged. Most of this work was carried out by Elijah Jones, architect to the Joint Hospitals Board. All the ward blocks except one were of one storey and built of brick. Two of the buildings added in the 1920s were cubicle isolation ward blocks. In 1948 the hospital was transferred to the National Health Service. 

Burslem, Haywood and Tunstall War Memorial Hospital SJ 874 511 101478 (demolished)

City General Hospital (Stoke upon Trent Union Workhouse; Wolstanton and Burslem Union Workhouse) SJ 858 452 BF 101402 (largely demolished)

Hartshill Orthopaedic Hospital (Longfield House; North Staffordshire Cripples’ Aid Society Orthopaedic Hospital) SJ 863 456 BF 101403 (demolished – apart from the railings – now painted blue.)

Haywood Hospital SJ 876 499 BF 101477

Built on the site of Burslem, Haywood and Tunstall War Memorial Hospital.

Longton Cottage Hospital see above under Longton

North Staffordshire Infirmary,, Etruria. SJ 874 473,  BF 101444 (demolished)

In 1802 a dispensary, which included a ward for in-patients, was founded for the people of Stoke-on-Trent. This was replaced by a new infirmary which was erected in Etruria to designs by Joseph Potter in 1816-19. A handsome stone building, comprising two storeys and a basement, with an entrance colonnade, it housed a maximum of 70 patients in a variety of wards. A separate block for fever cases was added in 1829, and further additions were made in 1852 and 1855. However, by the 1860s problems with ventilation and sanitation, compounded by subsidence caused by local mining works and noxious fumes from a nearby rubbish tip, forced the hospital authorities to consider moving to another site. As a result a new pavilion-plan hospital was erected in 1866-9 on a site on the west side of the Mount Estate, to the west of the new road between Hartshill and Penkhull. The infirmary building at Etruria was then demolished. 

North Staffordshire Infirmary, Princes Road, Hartshill (The Dispensary and House of Recovery; North Staffordshire Infirmary and Eye Hospital). SJ 866 455, BF101404 (demolished in 2021)

In 1802 a dispensary, which included a ward for in-patients, was founded for the people of Stoke-on-Trent. This was replaced by a new infirmary which was erected in Etruria to designs by Joseph Potter in 1816-19. In the ensuing decades local mining works took their toll on the building until subsidence, coupled with noxious fumes from a nearby rubbish tip, made it desirable to provide a new hospital on a new site.

The move was finally achieved in 1866-9, when a new hospital was built on the present site; this opened on 16 December 1869. It was designed jointly by Mr Nicholls of West Bromwich and Mr Lynam of Stoke-on-Trent, in consultation with Florence Nightingale. It was thus an early example of a pavilion-plan hospital, closely related to the Lariboisière in Paris. Largely of two storeys, there were four main pavilion ward wings with two smaller pavilions, arranged symmetrically on either side of a central courtyard. The main axis of each ward ran roughly north-west to south-east. In addition to the main infirmary building there were a number of detached buildings around it. These included a childrens’ ward block, built with a separate bequest from Sir Smith Child in memory of his eldest son, and another detached ward block known as the Albert Wards. The boiler house, laundry and mortuary were in a separate block on the north-east side of the main infirmary.

Additions were gradually made over the rest of the nineteenth century but the greatest period of expansion was in this century. In 1911 a new out-patients’ department was erected, designed by Keith D. Young of Young & Hall. In 1902 work began on a new nurses’ home, designed by A. R. P. Piercy, to commemorate the coronation of King Edward VII. This was extended in 1913, 1925 and again in 1940.

From 1925 a series of new ward blocks and ancillary departments were added which occupied the vacant land fronting Princes Road and around the old laundry block and Albert Wards, on the north-east side of the main building. These additions included the Chew Memorial Building (opened in 1933), the G. H. Downing Radiological Department (1937), the Enoch Haughton Memorial Ward block (1940), a new administration block by the Princes Road entrance (1941), and a new Pathological Department (1942).

In 1948 the administration of the hospital passed to the National Health Service. Modernisation of the old buildings and new additions have been carried out periodically and the original infirmary is now rather swamped by later work. 

Stanfield Hospital (Stanfield Isolation Hospital; Stanfield Sanatorium) SJ 873 511, BF 102731 (demolished)

Wolstanton and Burslem Union Workhouse SJ 867 531, BF 100861 (demolished)

The union workhouse had a separate infirmary wing to the south. After 1948 it became a home for the aged and infirm (Westcliffe), and in the 1990s the main workhouse ranges were largely demolished but the infirmary became Westcliffe Hospital. Claybourne nursing home was built on the site of the former workhouse, and the infirmary demolished. Maple West has been built on the site (independent living accommodation).

STONE

Trent Hospital (Stone Union Workhouse) SJ 899 338 BF 102044 (partly demolished, converted to housing)

SWYNNERTON

Stone JHB Infectious Diseases Hospital (Yarnfield Recovery Hospital), Moss Lane SJ 872 333 BF 102735 (seems to be extant, converted to housing)

TAMWORTH

Sir Robert Peel Community Hospital, Plantation Lane SK 188 026

Officially opened on 6 May 2009. It is a largely single storey complex, of red brick with (probably) Staffordshire blue-brick stripes, and hipped roofs with deep eaves.

Tamworth General Hospital, Hospital Street (Tamworth Cottage Hospital). SK 207 043, BF 101406 (part demolished, front range retained and converted to housing)

Originally established in 1878 by a local vicar as a cottage hospital and dispensary, this institution has since expanded into a small general hospital. The original single-storey brick cottage hospital, designed by Colonel Drake of the Royal Engineers, was erected on the site of Offa’s Dyke in 1878-80, and still forms the core of the present hospital.

A second storey was added in 1882, followed in 1889 by an extension wing, and in 1892-3 by a new mortuary. A new ward wing and an out-patients’ hall were designed for the hospital by Harvey & Wicks of Birmingham, and built in 1924. Of brick and stone, in an elegant Edwardian classical style, the additions formed a war memorial to the men of the area who fell in the war of 1914-18.

A detached nurses’ home was added in 1930, and a new operating theatre and kitchen block in 1932; both were subsidised by the Miners’ Welfare Fund and designed by their architect, R. Whitfield Parker. Solaria were added to the wards on the south side in 1937. The hospital was still operating as a general hospital under the National Health Service in 1993.  

Tamworth Union Workhouse, (St Editha’s Hospital) SK 208 052 (workhouse demolished, infirmary wing converted to housing)

Built in 1858-9 to designs by Briggs and Everall of Birmingham. According to The Builder it was designed for 212 inmates (80 adults, 100 children, 22 sick beds and 10 vagrants). The dining hall doubled as a chapel, and the children had their own separate dining hall. There was a separate hospital from the start, but a larger Infirmary wing added to west in 1904. The workhouse became a hospital under the NHS, named St Editha’s Hospital. It closed in 1998, after which most of the original workhouse was demolished and the site developed for housing. The 1904 infirmary wing was retained. [Sources: The Builder, June 1859: workhouses.org.]

YOXALL

Meynell Ingram Cottage Hospital, Town Hill SK 145 188 BF 101479 (extant, converted to domestic property)