ALDEBURGH

Aldeburgh Hospital, High Street TM 466 566, then Park Street TM 461 565

The cottage hospital on Aldeburgh High Street was established by 1924. At that time it had seven beds, though could squeeze in up to ten in an emergency. [Halesworth Times & East Suffolk Advertiser, 20 Aug. 1924, p.6.] In December 1942 the hospital was severely damaged when a bomb landed opposite, killing two patients and injuring several staff. Those needing hospital treatment were conveyed to Ipswich, and the rest evacuated to the First Aid Post in Aldeburgh.

Within two days the hospital moved into the house on Park Road that is still (in 2025) at the core of the present hospital. It was the only house available at the time, although it had been requisitioned by the military it was not in use.

By the late 1950s it had 14 beds including two for children. The matron in 1958 was Miss M. Renwick, who, according to the Nursing Times, ‘belies completely the myth of the dourness of her race (she comes from north of the Border) and has a smile for everyone’. Under the NHS it was run by the local GPs, including the woman doctor who had served the hospital during the War, and was indeed the only medical practitioner left in the town, and who had taken the lead in organising the evacuation and move to the new building. [Nursing Times, 13 June 1958, pp.682-6.] A large extension has been built to the rear of the original house, possibly in the 1990s (there was an extension appeal running in December 1989). [Country Life, 21 Dec. 1989, p.83. See also, Historic England Archive Building Files, references: 100000 and 100001

BARHAM

Barham Isolation Hospital TM 122 510 100004 (demolished)

This small hospital seems to have originated as a Pest House (marked as such on the OS map surveyed around 1883, at the foot of Pest House Lane, to the south-west of the workhouse). The buildings were still extant in the 1920s but had been superseded by a new and larger isolation hospital built to the north of the workhouse site (see below).

Bosmere and Claydon Road Infectious Diseases Hospital TM 122 510 100003 (converted to housing)

Bosmere and Claydon Union Workhouse (Barham House of Industry) TM 122 512 100002 (demolished)

Originally built as a House of Industry or Incorporation workhouse c.1765. After the Bosmere and Claydon Poor Law Union was formed in 1835 it took over the Incorporation workhouse. During the First World War the workhouse was turned over to the military, and was used by the Ministry of Labour between the wars before returning to military use in the Second World War to house prisoners of war.

BECCLES

Beccles and District War Memorial Hospital TM 421 899 100006

The hospital was built to commemorate the First World War, to designs by E. T. Boardman, architect. It was officially opened on 16 February 1924. It has a simple inscription ‘War Memorial Hospital 1914 – 1918 above the entrance.

Beccles Cottage Hospital TM 424 904 100005

Beccles Isolation Hospital TM 428 902 100007 demolished

Beccles Fever Hospital (now The Manse) TM 426 896 100046

BLYTHBURGH

Blythburgh and District Hospital (Bulcamp House of Industry) TM 440 762 100008 (converted to housing)

Originally built as Blything House of Industry, built in 1765 to designs by Thomas Fulcher of Debenham and completed the following year. In 1836 the management and ownership of the building was taken over by the Guardians of the Poor under the New Poor Law and it became Blything Union Workhouse. This ushered in a harsher regime, with stricter segregation of the paupers, entailing a certain amount of reconfiguration within the building. Under the NHS the former poor law institution became a hospital for the chronic sick but had closed by 2001.[Sources: see workhouses.org ]

BURY ST EDMUNDS

Isolation Hospital TL 859 625 100012 (demolished)

Small isolation hospital built to the south of Bury St Edmunds, just east of Hardwick Heath. It had been demolished by the time that the area was being developed with housing in the 1960s.

Isolation Hospital (19 and 19a Sicklesmere Road) TL 864 629 100011

Attractive two-storey rendered building converted into two houses around 1958-60. Originally built as a fever house, to the south of the County Gaol.

Pest House (Holywell Cottage) TL 852 631 100014 (part demolished)

The southern of the Pest Houses now forms part of a private house. It was built in 1665, but may never have been used for its original purpose. [Source: Suffolk Heritage Explorer, Monument Record.]

St Mary’s Hospital (Thingoe Union Workhouse) TL 847 638 100009 (demolished)

Built in 1836 on an octagonal plan for 300 paupers. The school building to the west became a detached infirmary in 1898, and a new infirmary built to the rear of the former school block in 1907 and a chapel.

The workhouse became St Mary’s Hospital for geriatrics under the NHS, closing in 1977. [Source: workhouses.org: OS mapping.]

West Suffolk CC Emergency Hospital for Infectious Diseases (57 Westgate Street, Highbury House) TL 850 640 100015

Highbury House, a large ?Georgian house set back from the road, was used during the Second World War as an emergency hospital for infectious diseases.

West Suffolk CC Sanatorium TL 869 634 100013

West Suffolk General Hospital (Ordnance Depot; Suffolk General Hospital) TL 850 638 100010 (largely demolished)

West Suffolk General Hospital, Hardwick Lane

Completed in 1974, relocating to a green-field site to the south of Bury St Edmunds from its increasingly congested site on Hospital Road. This is a historically significant NHS hospital as one of two built to the Department of Health’s mark I ‘Best Buy’ plan (the other was at Frimley, Surrey). The site architect at Bury St Edmunds was Bob Yearby. The first standard ‘best buy’ hospital with 550 beds had been devised in 1967 and comprised a low-rise building with internal courtyards so that it could be entirely naturally lit and ventilated. The new West Suffolk Hospital was one of the many public buildings that used RAAC – aerated concrete – in its construction. This light-weight material has caused deteriorated, often where water ingress has occurred on flat roofs. Remedial work has been undertaken, but there have been plans to replace the hospital on the nearby Hardwick Manor site, with work anticipated to begin in 2027-8. ([Source: ‘Best Buy hospital ‘Bury St Edmunds’, AJ, 19.06.1974, pp.1373-93.]

CARLTON COLVILLE

Lowestoft BC Smallpox Hospital (The Sanatorium) TM 504 892 100045

CLARE

Clare and Bumpstead JHB Infectious Diseases Hospital (later Knights Farm) TL 754 450 100016

EYE

Hartismere Hospital (Hartismere Union Infirmary) TM 143 737 and TM 141 741 BF 100017 and 100040 (workhouse buildings demolished)

Eye parish workhouse was built in the late eighteenth century and later altered to conform to the New Poor Law when it became the workhouse for Hartismere Union. In 1844 a second workhouse was erected at Wortham for children.

An infirmary was built on a separate site, north west of Eye, in 1915-16 on Castleton’s way. It was designed by Herbert J. Green of Norwich. It is a smart Queen-Anne-ish building with three storey central administrative block, with hipped roof topped by a cupola/bell tower, and two storey wings canted southwards to create a sun trap. The building contractor was J. Gibbons of Crowfield. It had a capacity of 160 beds. A dining-hall with chapel above were to the south of the admin. block with the kitchens at the south end. A detached single-storey block on the east originally contained a board-room, porter’s lodge and receiving wards (converted into a police station between 2005 and 2015).

This became Hartismere Hospital and passed to the NHS in 1948. The buildings were largely extant and still in use in 2025, a new care home having been built to the south since 2015. A health centre was also built to the south of the council offices (the offices since demolished) some time after 1976. [Source: RCHME Hospital Report BF 100017, K. A. Morrison 1991; OS mapping]

FELIXSTOWE

Bartlet Hospital (Bartlet Convalescent Home) TM 310 347 BF100019.

Felixstowe General Hospital (Croydon Cottage Hospital for Felixstowe and Walton) TM 307 348 100018

Herman de Stern Convalescent Home, Sea Road TM 294 332. Brick-built convalescent home of 1902.

Suffolk Convalescent Home (Suffolk Convalescent Home and Sea Bathing Infirmary) TM 290 342 BF100020. Former Suffolk Convalescent Home and Sea Bathing Infirmary. Mid- to late 19th century date.

FOXHALL

Ipswich CB Sanatorium for Pulmonary Tuberculosis TM 215 437 100033

FRAMLINGHAM

Framlingham Infirmary for Infectious Diseases TM 289 629 100080

HADLEIGH

Hadleigh and District Cottage Hospital TM 027 422 100022

HALESWORTH

Patrick Stead Hospital TM 390 780 100023

The Patrick Stead Hospital was built to the north of Halesworth on the Bungay Road in 1881-2. It is an unusually large and handsome building for a relatively small town, which was thanks to a generous bequest from Patrick Stead, after whom it was named. Stead had made his fortune as a maltster, and when he died in 1867 he bequeathed £27,000 to the town to build and endow a hospital.

An open competition was held for the design, the winner, Henry Hall, being selected by the architect J. K. Colling. The instructions for the competition required the provision of a dispensary, waiting and consulting room, with a separate entrance for out-patients, accident ward, kitchen and and offices, male and female wards for six patients each, a day or convalescent room, operating room and staff accommodation. Whether the architect was Henry Hall senior or junior is unclear – both had an address in Doughty Street, and both were Fellows of the RIBA by 1881. Hall junior may be the more likely candidate. He was later in partnership with K. D. Young which became a specialist practice in hospital design.

The Patrick Stead Hospital was designed in Elizabethan style of red brick with white brick detailing and Doulton Stone dressings, with the ornamental carving and sculpture by Harry Hems – this includes the bas-relief panel in the central gable of Christ healing the sick. The roof tiles were ‘mottled Broseley ribbed tiles’. The building contractors were Howard & Son, of Halesworth and London, and the hospital opened on 6 September 1882. [Sources: RCHME hospital report, K. A. Morrison, 1991: The Builder, 30 Oct. 1880, pp.531-2; 25 Feb. 1882, p239. See also J. W. Newby, The Patrick Stead Hospital, 1964.

A nurses’ home was added in the 1930s. There was also originally a gate lodge that was demolished in the 1970s-80s. The original hospital building had closed by 2022 when it was offered for sale, and has since been adapted into private houses. [B, vol.39, pp.531-2

Town Farmhouse (Isolation Hospital; Pesthouse Farm) TM 393 780 100024

HAVERHILL

Haverhill UD Infectious Diseases Hospital TL 667 448 100026

HOLBROOK

Royal Hospital School (Royal Hospital School Infirmary) TM 165 352 102801

IPSWICH

Christchurch Park Hospital (Suffolk Victoria Nursing Institute; Ipswich Nursing Home) TL 162 450 100034

Ipswich and East Suffolk Hospital, Heath Road Wing (Ipswich Union Workhouse) TM 192 450 100029

Built in 1896-9 to designs by Stephen Salter & H. Percy Adams with Lister Newcombe following a competition held in 1894 judged by Charles Barry. The builders were George Grimwood & Son of Sudbury and Ipswich on their contract price of £25,773. The workhouse opened in 1899 with accommodation for 369 paupers.

In the 1920s it became know as Heathfields Poor Law Institution. Anurses’ home was added in 1938, of two storeys, red brick and a hipped tile roof. Towards the end of the Second World War, two operating theatres were built to the east of the infirmary (in 1944), and in 1946 a ward block was added to either side, creating an H-plan surgical block named the Hunter Memorial Wing.

Under the NHS the southern side of the site continued to develop into a general hospital. A new maternity unit opened on 26 November 1970 in a ten-storey building. A laundry was built on the site of the original workhouse range in 1971, the Hawyard Unit was built for geriatrics and opened in 1979. At the southern end of the site a large new acute and surgical unit was added in the 1980s which adopted the Nucleus Hospital model plans developed by the Department of Health. It opened in 1985. Of the original buildings the receiving block, workhouse infirmary and some service buildings were extant in the 1990s, but by that time the receiving block had already been sold off and converted into flats. [Sources: RCHME Hospital Report, K. A. Morrison 1991, see also An Account of the National Health Service and the Ipswich and East Suffolk Group Hospital Management Committee, 1962; Belinda Foster, Provision of Poor Law Relief in Ipswich from 1800 to 1844, 1977.  Typescript in Ipswich Record Office and T. W. Russsell, Ipswich and its Workhouses, 1899

Ipswich Barracks Hospital TM 159 453 100035

Ipswich Hospital, Anglesea Road Wing (East Suffolk and Ipswich Hospital and Dispensary; East Suffolk and Ipswich Hospital) TM 150 452 100028

St Clement’s Hospital (Ipswich Borough Lunatic Asylum) TM 190 439 100036

St Helen’s Hospital (Ipswich Borough Infectious Diseases Hospital) TM 192 442 100030

Suffolk Victoria Nursing Home (Ipswich Maternity Home), 5-9 Lower Brook Street TM 165 443 100081

The Ipswich Nurses’ Home was established in 1872 as accommodation for nurses attending the sick poor. The home moved in 1903 to No.7 Lower Brook Street. It was then renamed the Suffolk Victoria Nursing Institute, and officially opened on 9 May by Princess Christian. A branch for medical and surgical cases was opened in 1904 in Fonnereau Road (see Christchurch Park Hospital, above). From 1918 the home began to admit maternity cases who were accommodated in a building on the premises fitted up with 8 beds. This was presumably Fairton House. In 1924 the Home acquired No.9, gifted to the Ipswich Nurses’ Home Committee by W. F. Paul. Extensions were carried out in 1930-1, providing an increase in the maternity beds to 15, with two labour rooms. No. 5 Lower Brook Street was also acquired and used as staff accommodation. Following the Midwives Act of 1936 the Ipswich Corporation arranged to use the premises and undertook responsibility for the domiciliary midwifery service.[Source: RCHME Hospital Report, K. A. Morrison, 1991.]

KEDINGTON

Risbridge Hospital (Risbridge Union Workhouse) TL 702 470 100038 (demolished)

Risbridge Union Workhouse was built in 1856 to designs by J. F. Clark, replacing an earlier parish workhouse in Haverhill. It was designed to accommodate 600 paupers, and was an attractive Elizabeth gothic building. Extensions in 1900 included a new male block and kitchen. From 1948 the former workhouse was transferred to the NHS and was administered by the West Suffolk Area Health Authority. It closed around 1993. [Sources: Great Bradley Suffolk website : Suffolk Archives, Risbridge Poor Law Union records etc. ]

KESGRAVE

Ipswich Smallpox Hospital TM 229 445 100032

LEISTON

Isolation Hospital TM 453 620 100039

LOWESTOFT

Lowestoft and North Suffolk General Hospital (Lowestoft Hospital) TM 549 934 100041 (closed c.2017, boarded up from June that year to at least October 2024)

Lowestoft BC Isolation Hospital (Lowestoft Smallpox and Fever Hospital) TM 538 935 100043

Mutford and Lothingland General Dispensary and Infirmary TM 500 900 100084

Normanston Hospital TM 527 933 100061

St Luke’s Hospital (Empire Hotel) TM 542 914 100044

MELTON

Phyllis Memorial Home TM 286 511 100048

St Audry’s Hospital (Melton House of Industry; Suffolk County Lunatic Asylum) TM 283 519 100047

MILDENHALL

Mildenhall Cottage Hospital TL 713 747 100049

NAYLAND-WITH-WISSINGTON

British Legion Sanatorium (Maltings Farm Sanatorium; now Maltings Farm) TL 952 338  100051

Maltings Farm Sanatorium was opened in 1901 by Dr Jane Walker on the southern part of the 100-acre East Anglian Sanatorium site (see below), but for poorer clients.  Initially for men, it began to admit women from 1904.  Wooden buildings were built around the farmhouse to accommodate patients, while the farmhouse accommodated the doctor. 

The barn was converted into a dining room for both sexes: its windows were enlarged, roof tiled, interior limewashed and floors concreted.  A coach house, cowhouse and stables were converted into kitchen, sculleries and offices.

Jane Walker Hospital (East of England Sanatorium; British Legion Sanatorium) TL 950 343 100052

Pest House (now The Old Pest House) TL 971 348  100053

NEWMARKET

Newmarket and Moulton JHB Infectious Diseases Hospital (Exning Fever Hospital) TL 632 665 100055 (part demolished, remainder converted to housing)

Newmarket General Hospital (Newmarket Union Workhouse) TL 639 642 100054 (largely demolished. South, West and East ranges of orignal workhouse preserved and converted to housing. St Ethelreda’s Church survives. New housing developed on part of site and new hospital to south)

The workhouse was built in 1837 to designs by William P. Roote. The chapel, St Etheldreda’s, was added in 1895. A new infirmary was built to the rear of the workhouse in 1902-3. During the Second World War the former poor law institution became an emergency hospital with single-storey hutted ward blocks added to the rear and on vacant ground to the south. Under the NHS it became a general hospital. A new hospital was built on the site of the southern EMS huts in the later 1990s. [sources: NewmarketHistory.org see also workhouses.org.]

Rous Memorial Hospital, Vicarage Road TL 648 634 100056

ONEHOUSE

Stow Lodge Hospital (Onehouse House of Industry) TM 032 591 100058

OULTON

Lothingland Hospital (Oulton House of Industry) TM 523 954 100060

Mutford and Lothingland Road Isolation Hospital (Oulton Smallpox Hospital) TM 523 942 100059

REYDON

Southwold URD Infectious Diseases Hospital TM 509 778 100063

SEMER

Cosford Union Workhouse (Semer House of Industry) TM 008 452 100064

SHIPMEADOW

Shipmeadow House of Industry (now The Viewpoint) TM 378 898 100065

SHOTLEY

HMS Ganges Royal Naval Hospital TM 250 338 100057 (demolished)

In 1899 the Royal Navy training ship, HMS Ganges, was moved from Falmouth to Shotley Point. A hospital ship (HMS Caroline) was already in existence thereabouts by 1881, but after the training ship had relocated an on-shore hospital was built between about 1900 and 1907.

It comprised five ward blocks, including three for infectious diseases, and a large admin and kitchen block. In 1903 the ships were abandoned and the on-shore site further developed into a large training establishment. By 1991 the site was in the hands of a developer and most of the naval buildings have been demolished. [Source: RCHME Hospital Report, K. A. Morrison, 1991.]

SOTHERTON

Pest House (now Pest House Cottages) TM 447 795 100068

SOUTHWOLD

Southwold Cottage Hospital (Victoria Memorial Hospital) TM 507 764 100069

STOWMARKET

Hill House Isolation Hospital (Stowmarket UDC Infectious Diseases Hospital) TM 042 598 100070

STRADBROKE

Hoxne Union Workhouse TM 250 732  100062 (largely demolished)

The workhouse for the Hoxne Union was built in 1834-5 to house 300 paupers at Barley Green following the model cruciform plan. To the rear was a fever hospital added around 1840-44, and fronting the workhouse two long ranges flanked an entrance archway from the main road. Decreasing population led to the amalgamation of the Hoxne and Hartismere Unions and the closure of the workhouse at Barley Green in 1871. The abandoned workhouse remained empty for several decades, but was used in 1914 as a POW camp. By 1921 the main buildings had all been demolished. The street-front range was converted to housing and named Wilby Croft, while the former fever hospital to the rear of the site was converted into two houses and named the Old Red House and the Red House. [Source: RCHME Hospital Report, K. A. Morrison 1991.]

SUDBURY

St Leonard’s Hospital  TL 877 414 100071

Sudbury Borough Isolation Hospital TL 876 418 100083

Sudbury Hospital TL 878 417 100072

Sudbury Union Workhouse (Walnut Tree Hospital) TL 870 414 100073 (part demolished, converted to housing)

According to an anon. MS account of the history of the Sudbury Workhouse (Bury St Edmunds Record Office, `The Early History of the Union Workhouse, Sudbury’) Sudbury Court of Guardians was set up in 1702 and converted the  buildings of the old college (f.1374 as residence for priests of St Gregory and St Peter) into a workhouse.  If correct, this probably resulted from an Act passed in 1702 `for erecting hospitals and workhouses within the town of Sudbury, for the better employment and maintaining of the poor’. [Suffolk and Essex Free Press, 3 April 1930] In 1835 the Sudbury Union was formed, incorporating 24 Suffolk and 18 Essex parishes. 

Three workhouses were established within the Union: Sudbury for able-bodied men and boys over 13; Bures for aged and infirm men and women, and Melford for able-bodied women and girls up to 16 and boys from 7 to 13.  An order issued by the Poor Law Commissioners dated 8 September 1835 allowed the Borough of Sudbury `to enjoy its ancient liberty wherein the rates for the relief of the poor were to be assessed, demanded, gathered and levied in the same manner and by the same officers in and by which they were previously assessed’.  Planning to erect a new workhouse, the Guardians bought a piece of land called Workhouse Piece, consisting of one and a half acres adjoining the existing workhouse, for £400 and the Workhouse itself, with its grounds, for £500.   On 18 August or October 1836 the Board of Guardians acquired `all that capital messuage or tenement commonly called or known by the name of the college or Saint Gregory’s College or by whatsoever other name or names the same hath been heretofore called or known and for many years converted into a workhouse with the yard or parcel of land fronting the same and all that the site of two cottages near adjoining one of which was used as a nursery for the Small Pox and was called the Pest House and the other was made and converted into a stable.  And also all that piece or parcel of land formerly called the College Barn Yard’.  Three cottages `near adjoining’ the former College had been mentioned in a lease of 1702. The new workhouse was designed by John Brown of Norwich and the builders were Warner Liddiard & Robert Kilton of London. It was completed in 1837. Extensions were carried out in 1848.

TATTINGSTONE

Isolation Hospital TM 134 374 100075

Built between 1882 and 1904 (on map evidence) to the north-west of Samford Union Workhouse – see below.

St Mary’s Hospital (Tattingstone House of Industry) TM 135 373 100074

Samford Incorporated Hundred Workhouse was built in 1765-6. It continued as such until 1849 when it was transferred to the management of a Board of Guardians under the New Poor Law. New ranges had been added to the north before that date, in about 1837. A hospital for infectious diseases was built to the north-west some time between 1882 and 1904. It became St Mary’s Hospital around 1930 and transferred to the NHS in 1948. It closed in 1991 and was later converted to housing.

WICKHAM MARKET

Plomesgate Union Workhouse (now Deben Court) TM 304 556 100077 (part demolished)

The Plomesgate Union Workhouse was built in 1835-7 of red brick with slate roofs in a simplified Elizabethan style to designs by John Brown. The workhouse was acquired by the local council in 1948 and converted to housing named Debden Court. [Sources: RCHME Hospital Report, K. A. Morrison, 1991: workhouses.org.]

WOODBRIDGE

Infectious Diseases Hospital TM 256 494 100078