Hertfordshire Hospitals Survey Revisited

October 4, 2024October 5, 2024 / Harriet Richardson / Leave a comment

Hertfordshire was one of the counties covered by the London team of the national hospitals survey, carried out in the early 1990s by the Royal Commission on the Historic Monuments of England. The London team comprised myself and Colin Thom (now Director of the Survey of London). At that time we only investigated hospitals built prior to the inauguration of the NHS in 1948 – so major post-war hospitals, such as those at Welwyn and Stevenage, were excluded.

*Welwyn Garden City’s early post-war general hospital was demolished in 2017.* *Photograph from in February 2017 © Gerry Gerardo, on* **Geograph**

Fieldwork for the survey was carried out in 1991-3. There was not enough time to visit every single site, and some were considered in greater detail than others. The selection had as much to do with ease of access as it did with the historic significance of the buildings. This meant that some ‘important’ sites were either missed out or only briefly dealt with. I am puzzled now as to why some weren’t visited. In Hertfordshire we seem not to have managed to get to Welwyn, Royston or Hitchin, and also didn’t photograph Letchworth Hospital. The rest we visited on various dates between May 1992 and June 1993, while also covering the rest of the South East (Greater London, Essex, Kent, East and West Sussex, and Surrey) as well as Avon, Staffordshire, Shropshire and parts of the West Midlands, added late on to help out the York-based team. We covered a lot of ground, so perhaps I shouldn’t be too surprised that I’m struggling to remember visiting some of them.

For each site a building file was created, and these can be consulted in Historic England’s Archive based in Swindon. (The reference numbers for the files can be found on each of the county pages of the gazetteer after the name of the hospital following the grid reference.) These files vary in content, but generally have a report, photographs and maps.

Follow the link to the Hertfordshire page of this website for more details of individual sites.

What does Pevsner say?

The best known architectural guide to the buildings of Britain is the series begun by Nikolaus Pevsner after the Second World War. The Pevsner guides are generally the first place to look for information about the historic buildings throughout the UK. The original Pevsner guide to Hertfordshire was published in 1953, with an extensive revision published in 1977 (revised by Bridget Cherry). A further revised guide with new material edited by James Bettley was published by Yale University Press in 2019. I have relied heavily on this for updates to the condition of the various hospitals that we visited back in the 1990s. However, hospitals, especially former hospitals, are not easy to find in the guides and often receive only cursory mentions, if any at all. It is not a reflection of their historic significance as public buildings, but rather their relatively lowly architectural status, as they were seldom designed by ‘top’ architects, many are more interesting for their plans than their outward appearance, and where there have been many additions and alterations they can seem muddled and incoherent.

*Original central administration block of West Herts Hospital, Hemel Hempstead, from the 1870s rebuilding of the infirmary. Photographed in 2018 © Dormskirk* *CC BY-SA 3.0*

In its introductory overview, the guide notes that the first purpose-built hospitals appeared around the same time as the first workhouses built after the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. The West Herts Infirmary at Hemel Hempstead was built in 1831-2 followed swiftly by Hertford’s County Hospital in 1832-3 to designs by Thomas Smith. In 1840 Hitchin Infirmary was built designed by Thomas Bellamy. The last two have since been replaced, and only the core of their original buildings has been retained. Bellamy’s Hitchin Infirmary is now Bellamy House – the remainder of the site now occupied by a Waitrose supermarket. Hertford County Hospital has been replaced by a new building constructed alongside in 2003-4 (architects Murphy Phillips) leaving the old building rather marooned. West Herts is a typical multi-phase hospital, with much of its built heritage remaining in use, including the early Cheere House of 1831 and Coe and Robinson’s 1875-7 pavilion-plan infirmary (see photo above).

*Former Watford Union Workhouse from Vicarage Road, photographed in May 1992. The former workhouse building became part of Watford District General Hospital © Harriet Blakeman*

As well as general hospitals, there was a private asylum at Much Hadham established around 1803 (principally of architectural interest to the Guide because it occupied The Palace), and a crop of workhouses. Of the latter, there are partial survivals at Buntingford (1836-7 by W. T. Nash); St Albans (1836-7 by John Griffin); Ware (1839-40 by Brown & Henman) and more substantially at Watford (1836-7 by T. L. Evans) where the workhouse developed into the general hospital.

*Architectural aerial perspective view of proposed asylum, Leavesden*, *from* The Builder

During the Victorian and Edwardian eras Hertfordshire attracted children’s homes and mental hospitals, including the Metropolitan Asylums Board’s ‘Imbeciles’ Asylum’, later Leavesden Hospital, at Abbots Langley designed by John Giles & Biven and built in 1868-70. This asylum was the twin of Caterham Hospital which served the south of the Metropolitan area.

*View looking up the central spine of the hospital with the ends of the ward pavilions to the left, water tower on right.* *All of the buildings in the photograph were demolished as part of the redevelopment of the site. © Harriet Blakeman*

Of Leavesden Hospital only the former administration block, chapel and recreation hall have been retained, converted to the residential Leavesden Court – a gated development – with new housing built to the north and west on the site of the former ward pavilions and parkland to the east.

Setting aside children’s homes, the Guide also notes Holman & Goodrham’s TB sanatorium built for the National Children’s Home built in 1909-10 (survives as the King’s School); Rowland Plumbe’s Napsbury Hospital built in 1901-5 (partially demolished, parts converted to housing); and G. T. Hine’s Hill End Asylum of 1895-9 (largely demolished). The only ‘local hospitals’ during this period mentioned in the Pevsner Guide are the cottage hospital at Watford of 1885 designed by C. P. Ayres (still extant) and the Sisters Hospital at St Albans designed by Morton M. Glover of 1893 (later extensions demolished, original main buildings converted to housing).

One of the former ward blocks of Hill End Hospital, photographed in May 1992. Only the chapel and the southernmost blocks were retained when the site was redeveloped for housing. *© Harriet Blakeman*

In the 1920s Royston Hospital was built to designs by Barry Parker (still an NHS hospital, but much extended). Then in the 1930s the large new mental hospital at Shenley was built, designed by W. T. Curtis (mostly demolished), and ‘a rather utilitarian general hospital’ at Welwyn designed by H. G. Cherry (still an NHS hospital with a newer block built to the south).

Part of the former Shenley Hospital, photographed in May 1992, now demolished, *© Harriet Blakeman*. Only the chapel, medical superintendent’s house and one small accommodation block were retained

The chapel at Shenley Hospital, photographed in May 1992 *© Harriet Blakeman*

There is no mention in the introduction of the post-war hospitals, and the Lister at Stevenage is quickly covered by two sentences that provide the date (1966-72), the architect (E. A. C. Maunder of the North West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board) and summary of its appearance (A central Block of nine storeys, a symmetrical elevation with projecting balconies, surrounded by extensive lower buildings.) Before too long, I hope to produce a separate post on the Lister and the other post-war hospitals in Hertfordshire.

Hertfordshire Hospitals in the 2020s

Hospital services in the 21st Century have become significantly more complex since the early years of the NHS. The NHS currently has thirteen hospitals in the county (not including those that were formerly in Hertfordshire which now lie within Greater London – such as in Barnet). There have been at least 44 hospitals in Hertfordshire in the past, not including a few small local authority hospitals for infectious diseases. The decline in the number of hospitals reflects increasing centralisation of services and changing practices in medical care and treatment. Of the 44 that feature in the Hertfordshire gazetteer page, only five are still NHS hospitals; 15 have been converted to housing or other use, including partial demolition; and 24 have been either entirely or largely demolished. The scale of demolition is larger than even that figure suggests, as it includes some of the largest hospital complexes in the county.

*Former Harperbury Hospital, photographed in May 1992 © Harriet Blakeman*

It has been depressing to discover the extent of destruction of former hospital buildings, a great many of them only having been demolished in the last ten to twenty years. A great deal more should and could have been retained, particularly of the large former mental hospitals such as Shenley, Harperbury and Hill End.

*Former St Pancras Industrial Schools that became part of Abbots Langley Hospital, photographed in the early 1990s, now demolished. © Harriet Blakeman*

Leavesden Hospital, as mentioned above, has largely been demolished to make way for housing. The hospital also had an annexe to the south. This had formerly been the St Pancras Schools, together with detached hospital and babies home. It had an Emergency Medical Scheme spider block built at the start of the Second World War on vacant ground behind the buildings which became Abbots Langley Hospital when transferred to the NHS in 1948. These emergency hutted buildings were intended to be temporary, and it is perhaps more surprising that they lasted into the 1990s than that few of them are left in the 2020s.

*The wartime extension of EMS hutted ward blocks* *at Abbots Langley Hospital, photographed in the early 1990s, now demolished. © Harriet Blakeman*

I have always had a few favourite hospitals – ones that were particularly attractive or interesting. In Hertfordshire, Shenley was one – at least in part because of its lovely grounds. The hospital was laid on the Porters Park estate, along with the mature landscape around the mansion house.

Porters Park mansion was adapted for convalescent patients at Shenley Hospital. *© Harriet Blakeman*

Porters Park has a complicated history having been substantially rebuilt or remodelled on more than one occasion. Its present appearance is largely due to the rebuilding of 1902 for C. F. Raphael by the architect C. F. Harold Cooper. The house and estate were transformed into Shenley Mental Hospital in the 1930s. The map below show the extent of the hospital in the 1950s. It was designed on a colony plan, whereby all the patients’ accommodation and treatment blocks were detached, and arranged in the manner of a village, with central service buildings and chapel.

*Shenley Hospital on the OS map surveyed in the 1950s CC-BY (NLS)*

The map below shows the modern housing development on the site. The existing buildings are shaded orange. The map is overlaid on the 1950s OS map above – and the grey shapes of the hospital blocks can just be seen behind. Only the PW – place of worship – and the small block to its south are from the hospital era.

*Overlay map of Shenley showing the new housing development on the former hospital site. OS map of the 1950s* *and OS Opendata CC-BY (NLS)*

Napsbury was another favourite – here too the landscape setting was particularly good, but the architect for this large asylum, Rowland Plumbe, was allowed to bring his characteristic style to the buildings, which were more decorative than Hine’s more pedestrian Hill End. The picturesque qualities of Napsbury no doubt made its adaptation appealing for the developers of the site, and it is now at the heart of Napsbury Park – a residential development near St Albans largely constructed between 2002 and 2008 (see blog post on Napsbury here).

One of the detached villas at Napsbury Hospital, photographed in the 1990s. Sadly, this villa was demolished *© Harriet Blakeman*

If I had to name a top three of Hertfordshire hospitals, Napsbury would probably be at number one, with Shenley at number two. At number three I would put Bennett’s End – and I was particularly saddened to see that this one has been demolished. It was the perfect small local authority isolation hospital, built in accordance with the Local Government Board’s model plans.

*Aerial perspective of Bennett’s End Hospital published in 1914*, *the hospital looked remarkably similar to this when we visited in the 1990s.*

*Bennett’s End Hospital, administration block © Harriet Blakeman*

There were a few other losses that I am particularly saddened by. Potters Bar Hospital was a charming low-rise late 1930s Deco-ish building that has been replaced by a Tesco supermarket. A new Community Hospital was built on Barnet Road.

*Potters Bar and District Hospital, Mutton Lane, built* c.1938, *closed 1995 © Harriet Blakeman*

I was also shocked to find that I had missed Welwyn Garden City’s Queen Elizabeth II Hospital, demolished in 2017 after the new QEII was built on the adjacent site. The original QEII opened in 1963 and was one of the first new general hospitals to be completed by the NHS. There is a little more information on the Hertfordshire page.

*Model of the* *Welwyn-Hatfield new hospital, published 1958 by the North-West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board*

It has been a sobering exercise, revisiting the survey of Hertfordshire’s hospitals. Far more has gone than I had anticipated. We knew at the time that the NHS was winding down the majority of the large former mental hospitals in England. There had also been an increase in hospital-building during the 1980s with many ‘nucleus’ district general hospitals being built. Together this contributed to a great many hospital closures and redundant buildings. Replacing the older pre-war hospitals had been an early ambition of the new NHS in 1948, but it has taken most of the second half of the twentieth century to come close to that ambition.

Astley Ainslie Hospital, Edinburgh

August 30, 2024August 30, 2024 / Harriet Richardson / 1 Comment

Astley Ainslie Hospital, gates by Thomas Hadden, photographed February 2024, © H. Blakeman

This post looks at the early history of the Astley Ainslie Hospital and the development of a more scientific approach to convalescence in the early twentieth century.

*The balcony and veranda on the south side of the new ward wing added to Canaan Park House, from* The Nursing Times, *9 Jan. 1926*

The Astley Ainslie Hospital is the main rehabilitation hospital in the NHS Lothian region. There are buildings of various dates, from the early 19th century to the early 21st century on the large site in the Grange area of Edinburgh. The hospital was established for convalescent patients from the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh by a generous bequest from David Ainslie. The site comprising four large villas and a golf course was acquired in 1921, and the architect John Jerdan commissioned to adapt one of the villas – Canaan Park – as the first phase of turning the new hospital. The house became the main administration department with a new wing added to the south for 34 female patients under the charge of Dr (Isabella) Mary Mears, the resident medical officer.

The first patients were admitted in 1923, and three years later the Nursing Times provided a description of the new institution along with a photograph of the recently built ward unit (see above). The article noted the beautiful grounds, with fine view to the Braid Hills, and that the new ward unit was ideally suited to its purpose of a ‘convalescent retreat’. Although the Astley Ainslie was intended for patients from the Royal Infirmary it was independently run, with its own body of governors, as intended by its benefactor, David Ainslie. It was on his instruction that the hospital was named after John Astley-Ainslie, David Ainslie’s nephew who had died at the young aged of 26. It was also intended that the institution should be for cases that required longer care than was provided at the Infirmary’s existing convalescent home at Corstorphine (see the Edinburgh page for more details).

*Canaan Lodge, Millbank, Canaan House and Canaan Park, on the 25-inch OS map surveyed in 1893 reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Scotland, CC-BY (NLS)*

The Nursing Times described the entrance hall of Canaan Park House as having a piano and that it was ‘bright with pots of growing chrysanthemums’. The colour scheme generally was white and green – colours chosen for their calming and restful qualities. No operations were to be conducted at the hospital, but post-operative treatment, such as changing dressings, was one of the potential nursing duties. Initially the patients were generally surgical, tuberculosis or adolescent heart cases. The wards were ‘big, bright, airy places built on the horseshoe plan’, the balcony and veranda were accessed from large French windows, and had five beds on each, with a further twelve within the ward. Some patients slept out on the balcony or veranda in winter and summer. As well as the two wards, the patients had the use of a dining-room that also served as a recreation room.

*Canaan Park House, with the 1920s ward wing on far right. Photographed February 2024, © H. Blakeman*

The ample grounds at the Astley Ainslie allowed out-door recreation including bowls, croquet and clock golf. Patients could also undertake gardening in the vegetable garden. Indoors there was a well-stocked library, while concerts, lectures and entertainments were organised regularly.

*Canaan House* *in 2024*, *© H. Blakeman*

Flowers, fruit and vegetables were supplied from the gardens, and the original gardeners to the large houses were retained with a view to preserving the ‘old-world appearance’ of the grounds. An ample supply of fresh produce was a vital part of providing patients with a nutritious diet, with a stress on milk, butter, eggs, green vegetables and fruit. A considerable part of the estate was laid out as a kitchen and fruit garden in order to maintain a constant supply. The best diet for convalescents was an ongoing subject of study. Early experiments at the Astley Ainslie in trying to encourage patients to consume plenty of green vegetables, especially when raw – such as lettuce and tomatoes – was too much of a novelty for some, being ‘often neither appreciated nor eaten without persuasion’.[J. Cunningham, Edinburgh Medical Journal, 1931 v.38 (9), p.146.]

*OS map revised 1913, part of site acquired for the hospital CC-BY (NLS)*

The beneficial effects of nature, of fresh air, sunlight and pleasant grounds, had long been recognised as an important part of the therapeutic treatment of convalescent patients and before the development of effective drugs to treat tuberculosis had been shown to slow the progress of that disease in some patients. Sanatoria were designed with sun-trapping angled plans – a butterfly, or half-butterfly plan – with verandas in front onto which beds could be wheeled. This was the form adopted for the new blocks built in the hospital grounds, but even in the first ward extension to Canaan Park House a sun-trap was created where ‘screen-enclosed, sun bathing takes place in summer’ and a wooden shelter was built where patients could sit out and enjoy ‘the wintry sunshine, each clad in a big coat and wrapped about with a warm fleecy blanket’.

*East Pavilion, north elevation, photographed February 2024 © H. Blakeman*

Two neighbouring villas were acquired in the 1920s to extend the site: Morelands and St Roque House. In the second half of this decade the first two new hospital blocks and a nurses’ home were constructed. For the design of the new buildings the governors turned to the architects Auldjo Jamieson and Arnott, who had taken over the practice of Sydney Mitchell and Wilson, architects of many hospital buildings including extensions to the Royal Infirmary. The grandly named and wealthy Ernest Arthur Oliphant Auldjo Jamieson (1880-1937) had worked in Mitchell and Wilson’s office early in his career before setting up on his own account around 1909-10, but soon after the two practices were merged and James Alexander Arnott (1871-1950) joined as a partner.

*OS map revised 1932 showing the East and West Pavilions, Scientific block, Kitchen Block and Nurses’ Home CC-BY (NLS)*

The 1920s hospital blocks (now the East and West Pavilions) were single-storey, butterfly-plan buildings built on the site of the ladies’ golf course (see maps above and below). The slope of the site gave uninterrupted views of Blackford Hill to the south.

*Millbank Pavilion, south elevation, photographed February 2024*, © *H. Blakeman*

A third butterfly-plan pavilion was built on the site of Millbank House which was acquired by the governors around 1930. At the same time a new main entrance to the site was created on Grange Loan with its fine wrought-iron gates made by Thomas Hadden in his characteristic Arts & Crafts style of flowing natural forms (see photographs at the top of the post and below). The gates were hung between square sentry pavilions with pyramidal roofs and over-sized circular window.

*The ornamental wrought iron gates made by Thomas Hadden, photographed when newly installed, image from HES Archives*

The nurses’ home was completed in 1930, a two-storey and attic, H-plan building, built on the site of South Bank House, just west of the former golf course. Plans of the home had been drawn up by 1925 when they were published in the Architects’ Journal. It followed the conventions of the time, with single bed-rooms for 45 nurses and shared bathrooms and toilets on the upper floors, and communal recreation rooms on the ground floor.

*Nurses’ Home, north elevation, photographed February 2024 © H. Blakeman*

Just north of the nurses’ home a central kitchen block was built, now the Blackford Pavilion and still functioning as a kitchen and canteen. It also houses NHS Lothian’s health promotion Resource Centre. A covered corridor connects the centre to the nurses’ home.

*The Blackford Pavilion* *© H. Blakeman*

A scientific block was amongst the early buildings at the Astley Ainslie, reflecting the governors’ decision that the institution should act as a centre for investigating the problems connected with convalescence and the greater prominence of rehabilitation in the years after the First World War. The large numbers of military personnel who became disabled in action led to developments in prosthetics and a range of treatments or therapies. The scientific block was designed in more formal style than the ward pavilions, its south front featuring an arcade of Grecian Doric columns within which the main entrance sits behind a pair of columns set in Antis. It housed a gymnasium for physiotherapy (at the time termed ‘massage’ and remedial exercises – a reminder of physiotherapy’s origins in ‘Swedish Gymnastics’). It also had an electric department with x-ray equipment, rooms for ultra-violet radiation and electric therapeutics, a dentist’s room, dispensary and research laboratory. Heliotherapy was an important part of convalescent treatment, but the unreliability of the weather soon led to the addition of an artificial sunlight lamp.

*Scientific Block, photographed February 2024, © H. Blakeman.*

In April 1929 Lieutenant-Colonel John Cunningham was appointed as the Medical Superintendent of the Institution. He delivered a number of papers about the new science of convalescence to the Edinburgh Medical Society that were subsequently published in the Society’s journal. In a paper of 1931 he noted that the organised study of convalescence and the methods of dealing with it were of recent growth, and that there were few publications on the subject. Historically the main ingredients of successful convalescence were ‘moderation in exercise, peace of mind, tranquil sleep, and proper hygiene’. [Cunningham, ‘The Convalescent State’, Edinburgh Medical Journal, 1931, vol.38 (9), p.137.] However, until at least the mid-19th century, convalescence had been available only to the rich – ‘the poor man had no time to be sick, and still less were facilities for recovery provided for him’. [Idem. p.138.]

*View of the Scientific block from the west* *© H. Blakeman*

The earliest convalescent hospital founded in Britain was probably the Metropolitan Convalescent Institution, founded in 1841 and later moving to purpose-built accommodation at Walton-on-Thames (later named Ellesmere Hospital, see the Surrey page for more details). The type of convalescent home that developed concentrated on cases that were already well on the way to recovery. Most were unable to take patients who required active medical attention.

*Metropolitan Convalescent Institution, later Ellesmere Hospital, Surrey Wellcome Collection*

The Health Insurance Acts improved access to basic convalescence to the working classes (see Convalescing in Colwyn Bay for more details). There had long been an economic advantage to giving the work force a proper opportunity to convalescence – both from an employers’ point of view and for hospitals. Apart from freeing beds in an acute hospital by transferring convalescents to a different setting, the relative cost per bed of a convalescent home was significantly less than for an acute hospital.

During the First World War convalescent establishments were provided as well as hospitals for the military. This spurred advances in the study and treatment of convalescence, as well as bolstering the arguments for separate convalescent institutions that were specially designed and equipped for the purpose. Classification of convalescent patients was developed to outline the different requirements of particular groups, such as cardiac, orthopaedic or psychiatric.

*Occupational Therapy Unit, photographed February 2024 © H. Blakeman*

By the 1920s America was forging ahead in refining the treatment of convalescents. The main sources of information were publication by John Bryant in the 1920s, and the example of the Burke Foundation near New York. The Burke Foundation had 300 beds and dealt with many cases previously excluded from convalescent homes, such as chronic illness and physical disabilities. Occupation and recreation as aids to recovery played an important role. There are cross-overs here with therapies in psychiatric hospitals of the time and particularly in institutions for those with learning disabilities, but the benefits of encouraging some form of occupation for convalescent patients had been recommended by many, including Florence Nightingale. Occupational therapy developed during the First World War, when it was shown to have positive effects on mental wellbeing (or in the language of the time, ‘mental tone and preventing moral deterioration).

One of the pioneering advocates of occupational therapy in Britain was Sir Robert Jones, who noted the lesson learnt during the First World War of the psychological and physical value of work. Workshops for wounded soldiers filled the hours when they weren’t undergoing treatment, usefully distracting their minds. The Canadian war hospitals were some of the first to place ‘Occupational therapy’ on an organised basis, while some of the earliest training schools for occupational therapists were established in Canada and the United States. The Astley Ainslie was one of the first to establish a school of Occupational Therapy in Scotland.

In a future post I will look at some of the later developments at the hospital.

St Vincent’s Hospital, Kingussie

August 16, 2024 / Harriet Richardson / Leave a comment

*St Vincent’s Hospital, photographed in August 2022 © H. Blakeman*

Perched high above Kingussie sits the former St Vincent’s Hospital, empty and vulnerable to the attentions of vandals since it closed in 2021. It was replaced by the new Badenoch and Strathspey Community Hospital at Aviemore.

The history of the hospital spans more than a century. It first opened in 1901 as the Grampian Sanatorium, founded by Dr Walter de Watteville who had already begun treating patients on the open-air principle in 1898 at his home ‘Sonnhalde’. De Watteville initially added a wing to his house, with separate entrance. This has some claim to being the first privately instituted TB sanatorium in Scotland.

There was sufficient demand for treatment that de Watteville was able to build a larger sanatorium in 1900 which was opened in June 1901. It occupied a large site, of ten acres, laid out with walks – gentle exercise being part of the ‘treatment’ for TB. Patients were also thought to benefit from inhaling the scent of pine trees – of which there were many in the surrounding woods.

The new sanatorium was designed by the local architect A. Mackenzie, with Alexander Cattanach as the mason. It has a south-easterly aspect, the original bedrooms for the patients all on this side of the building with corridors behind. Their rooms had stained and polished wood floors, walls painted with ‘duresco’ (a water-based paint) and had rounded angles. The furniture was also specially designed. At the ends of the building on the ground floor were larger rooms used as dining and day-rooms. The kitchens were in a service wing at the rear, along with staff accommodation.

The distinctive round-arched windows no longer have their original glazing which were sash windows with a ‘rounded revolving fanlight’ above. Some of the rooms at the centre of the building gave out onto a veranda or balcony, via French doors. The engraved view published in Walters’ Sanatoria for Consumptives (below) shows patients lying on camp beds on the uncovered veranda in front of the hospital. The nature of the revolving fanlights can also be seen: they tilted on side pivots.

*Grampian Sanatorium (later St Vincent’s Hospital) from F. R. Walters,* Sanatoria for Consumptives, *published in 1905.*

The sanatorium was heated by open fires, lighting was by electricity. Dr de Watteville acted as the medical superintendent and his wife as matron, helped by a medical assistant, two nurses and domestic staff. [F. R. Walters, Sanatoria for Consumptives, 3^rd edn. 1905, pp.189-90.]

*Dr Walther’s Nordrach Sanatorium, from F. R. Walters, Sanatoria for Consumptives, published in 1905.*

The inspiration behind the design of the sanatorium, and the treatment conducted within it, was Nordrach Sanatorium in the Black Forest of Germany run by Dr Otto Walther. A small clutch of sanatoria were named after the German hospital in Britain – including Nordrach on Dee, Banchory (later Glen-o-Dee Hospital), and Nordrach upon Mendip, near Bristol.

*St Vincent’s Hospital, rear wing, photographed in August 2022 © H. Blakeman*

In 1917 de Watteville sold the sanatorium to Dr Felix Savy, who increased the capacity of the hospital slightly – from 18 to 27 beds by 1926. Artificial pneumothorax was made available from around 1926, Dr Savy being a pioneer of this surgical technique to collapse the infected lung. He also introduced X-ray equipment, UV light and laboratory facilities.

In 1934 the sanatorium was purchased by the Sisters of the Order of the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, although Dr Savy remained as the physician in charge. The Sisters had the rear extension built as living quarters, and created a chapel above the main entrance. The photographer, Oscar Marzaroli, was a patient in the 1940s. The sanatorium was not transferred to the NHS in 1948, although it was used for NHS patients for a few years until the demand for beds for TB cases declined. By the mid-1950s the decline in TB led to many former sanatoria being adapted to new uses. St Vincent’s became a home for the elderly in 1956. As the residents increasingly required nursing care, by the early 1970s the Order planned to create wards for geriatric patients (this may relate to work by J. G. Quigley and Partners, architects, Glasgow noted on the Dictionary of Scottish Architects for 1969-71 for the Sisters.). The interior was remodelled in 1973-4 to convert the ground floor into a geriatric hospital unit, run by Grampian Health Board, while the upper floor remained a residential home run by Highland Regional Council. As part of the works, a large new day room was created at the west side, the old fireplaces and chimneys removed. It was still run by the Sisters of the Order, but finding staff was proving increasingly difficult and in 1986 the home hospital was bought by the NHS. The upper floor was converted to provide a psychogeriatric unit in 1988-9. [J. C. Leslie adn S. J. Leslie, The Hospitals of Badenoch & Strathspey, 2022.]

Winsley Sanatorium

July 14, 2024 / Harriet Richardson / Leave a comment

Winsley Sanatorium was built on the outskirts of Winsley, a small village between Bath and Bradford on Avon. It first opened in 1904, and was transferred to the NHS in 1948. Originally established to treat tuberculosis, as vaccination and antibiotics led to a decline in the need for such specialist hospitals it developed into a specialist chest hospital. Few additions were made in the post-war period, and it continued use into the early 1980s. After closure the site was developed as Avonpark retirement village. The original building (pictured above) was retained in the redevelopment, but plans this year have been put forward for further development on the site which would see this building demolished. The planning application stressed that ‘little heritage interest’ survived as most of the former sanatorium buildings had been demolished, and this one had been ‘significantly altered’. It had not been so altered for its original appearance to have been lost.

*Winsley Sanatorium, photographed in the early 1990s, © L. Holmstadt*

Winsley Sanatorium’s foundation was in large part due to the efforts of Dr Lionel Weatherly of Bath, chairman of the Gloucester, Somerset and Wilts branch of the National Association of for Consumption. The promoters were delighted by the site, which was conveniently placed between the three counties. It had been the site of Murhill Quarry, the local stone being used in the construction, looking out over the Wiltshire downs and the White Horse at Westbury. The design was inspired by the sanatorium at Hohenhonnef on the Rhine, but the plans of all the principal Continental sanatoria were consulted in the design stage and their leading features adopted.

*Hohenhonnef Sanatorium, 2012, photograph © Wokenkratzer,* CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikemedia

*Typical upper floor plan of the Hohenhonnef Sanatorium*, *reproduced in F. Walters* Sanatoria for Consumptives, 1905.

The perspective view (below) shows a three-storey building, with a butterfly plan in which the outer ends of the building were angled to create a sheltered sun-trap. On the north side – not shown on the perspective view – the wings were angled more sharply, at 90 degrees. The main entrance was also positioned on the north side, while a detached building was to house the kitchen, offices and patients’ dining-hall. Typically the patients’ rooms faced south, accessed from a corridor that ran along the north side of the main range, but with rooms on either side of a central corridor in the angled end wings, as in Hohenhonnef Sanatorium (see illustrations above). Open-air treatment was to be facilitated by a wide veranda, or ‘liegehalle’, along the south side of the building and wrapping around the wings.

*Architectural perspective of the proposed sanatorium, published in the* Bristol Medico-Chirurgical Society Journal, *June 1901*

It was an ambitious project, but the funding was initially precarious. There seem to have been hopes that it would be chosen as the site for the King’s Sanatorium for which Sir E. Cassell had promised the handsome sum of £200,000, but after the site was inspected by members of the King’s advisory board, it was found to be too small. The projected cost of the proposed sanatorium was £20,000, but by March 1902 they had only raised about £5,000. [Lancet, 29 March 1902, p.930.] That year the Bristol Medico-Chirurgical Society Journal reported that the site had been levelled and a large quantity of good building stone had been prepared and stacked ready for use as soon as the Committee had sufficient money in hand to justify commencing building operations.

*Ground and first-floor plans of the front range of the principal block. Reproduced from* The Builders’ Journal, *1 Feb. 1905, p.56*

The foundation stone was laid on 4 June 1903 by Lady Dickson-Poynder, a ceremony attended by many of those involved with establishing the sanatorium, including Dr Weatherly, and local dignitaries, including the Bishop of Bristol, Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice M. P. and Sir John Dickson-Poynder, M. P. [Lancet, 13 June 1903, p.1693.]

Early postcard of Winsley Sanatorium, showing the principal block to the left, the bedroom block on the right and the rest hall on the higher ground between the two. Reproduced by permission of H. Martin

The first buildings of the sanatorium were constructed in 1903-4, the first patients being admitted in December 1904 and a formal opening taking place the following year. The architects were the local firm of Thomas Ball Silcock jr and Samuel Sebastian Reay, and the builders were Jacob Long & Sons of Bath. The lack of funds meant that the original design for the principal block had to be scaled back: the angled wings were lopped off and the height reduced from three storey plus attics to two storeys with attics. [Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health, City of Gloucester, 1905: The Builder, 1 Aug. 1906, p.56.]

*OS map of 1922, showing the positions of the original main ranges. CC-BY (NLS)*

In addition to the principal block there was a separate ‘bedroom block’, although there were also 26 bedrooms for the patients in the main building which also had a central reception room featuring a broad bay window, a suite of rooms for the doctor, and accommodation. The ‘bedroom block’ was three storeys high with 34 patient rooms. All the interior walls were finished with hard plaster. Corners and angles that might harbour dirt and dust were avoided by curved covings. The bedroom floors were finished with floorcloth (not unlike linoleum, this was manufactured in large sheets of oiled canvas). The architects designed or specified the furniture for the sanatorium which included bedsteads, washstands, wardrobe a dressing chest, bedside table and a single chair that were all enamelled white with nickel-plated fittings. The only piece of soft furnishing in each room was an armchair.

*Winsley Sanatorium, centre section of the rest hall or ‘liegehalle’, photographed in the early 1990s © L. Holmstadt*

Rainwater was captured and stored in a large tank on the site to serve the laundry, housed in a detached building. Electric lighting was employed, the contractors for the electric lighting being Edwards & Armstrong of Bristol, with an ‘electric light station’ on site near the laundry building. The hospital was only connected to the national grid in 1950.[Bath Chronicle, 18 March 1950, p.12.] Heating was by a mix of hot-water pipes and open fireplaces.

*Rear view of the long rest hall showing partial demolition in the early 1990s © L. Holmstadt*

There was also a detached rest shelter or ‘liegehalle’, measuring 100ft in length, that formed a link range between the principal and the bedroom blocks. This seems to be the timber structure pictured above that was in a state of dereliction in the early 1990s (pictured above). It was highly unusual with its thatched central portion, and definitely a picturesque element of the sanatorium. The idea of a rest hall or ‘liegehalle’ came from open-air treatment practised in Germany where patients were encouraged to spend as much time as possible out in the open air, or in a shelter such as this, that offered some protection from the worst the weather might threaten, but were thoroughly ventilated by plentiful window openings.

*End section of the rest hall in the early 1990s © L. Holmstadt*

Within a year of opening the sanatorium’s finances were in a mess. It was £15,000 in debt and its annual income well short of its outgoings. There were accusations of extravagance on the initial outlay on building, but also misgivings about the efficacy of the treatment offered. Support was generally lacking. Its 60 beds were barely adequate for its populous catchment area, centred on Bath, but without financial support expansion was impossible. Some of the immediate difficulties in 1906 were countered by raising some £7,500 on mortage.[The Medical Press and Circular, 19 Sept 1906, p.295.]

*Possibly the workshop range, buildings on northern boundary of the sanatorium in the early 1990s © L. Holmstadt*

An extension was completed in 1934 which comprised a new admin block, nurses’ home, and a recreation and rest room for women. Additional beds were thereby provided in the original main block. The new admin block was situated at the western end of the original main block and was designed ot harmonise with it. At the west end of the new admin block was the women’s recreation room, which enjoyed a fine view across the valley. It comprised two large rooms, and was flat-roofed, with generous glazing and french windows opening out on to a croquet lawn.[Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser, 20 Oct. 1934, p.5.]

*OS Map from 1936 showing the additions, including the new administrative block to the west of the original principal block CC-BY (NLS)*

By the end of the 1930s the sanatorium had expanded to provide 135 beds. In 1948 the sanatorium was transferred to the National Health Service and in 1950 changed its name to the Winsley Chest Hospital. An article in the Bristol Observer published in December 1950 described the life of the patients there, whose average stay in the hospital was nine months. ‘They live… that kind of friendly community life that in the outside world is being killed by the ever-quickening tempo of modern life.’ Here, ex-servicemen found the comradeship they knew in the Services. To help the patients structure their day and fill their time was the occupational therapist – the first full-time OT appointment had been made in 1942. Handicrafts were encouraged, particularly of articles that the patients would find useful in their own homes. They were supplied with materials at cost price to make rugs, woven ties and scarves, tapestries, cushion covers, soft toys etc. Special workrooms were provided, but patients also worked while in bed. Entertainments included whist drives, lectures and concerts. The patients also produced a magazine, which had begun in 1936, was suspended during the war, and started up again in 1949 when it changed its name from the ‘Winsley Sanatorium Magazine’ to the ‘Winslonian’.[Bristol Observer, 2 Dec. 1950, p.3: Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 17 Sept. 1949, p.7.]

*One of the outbuildings at Winsley Sanatorium in the early 1990s © L. Holmstadt*

For around forty years, between 1930 and 1970, Dr A. J. P. Alexander served as the resident consultant physician to Winsley Sanatorium. He witnessed the revolution in the treatment and prevention of tuberculosis, and steered the hospital in the new direction of specialising in other diseases of the chest, including lung cancer. Dr Alexander established the league of friends, which raised funds to improve patient amenities, paying for a new hall that was named after the Alexander. [Somerset Guardian, 3 July 1970, p.7.]

*Postcard of Winsley Chest Hospital, sent in 1957 by a patient who marked their room with a blue cross.*

The hospital closed in 1982, and put up for sale in 1988. Since then most of the buildings on the site have been demolished to make way for housing development. The original principal block, together with its western extension, were retained – for a while as accommodation for the elderly, but plans have been passed recently by the local planning department to allow this remnant of the former sanatorium to be demolished.

Further reading: Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre have a good set of records of the hospital. A history of the hospital was published in 1992 written by John Willet, a former hospital administrator, Hospital Diary, The History of Winsley Chest Hospital. See also Bradford on Avon Museum’s website for further information and photographs.]

Tenbury Cottage Hospital

July 8, 2024July 10, 2024 / Harriet Richardson / Leave a comment

I recently acquired this postcard of the cottage hospital in Tenbury. It wasn’t a hospital that I was familiar with, and it seems to have missed out of the RCHME hospitals survey – perhaps because it lies on the border of two counties, Tenbury itself being in Worcestershire while the hospital lies over the river, and over the county boundary, in the Shropshire parish of Burford. Shropshire was one of the counties that I worked on, but this hospital slipped through the net. It’s a pity, not least because it is still an NHS hospital and the original section is a listed building.

Tenbury surveyed for the 25-inch OS map in 1883, the cottage hospital is at the top right, along the road from the Swan Hotel. The main village is south of the river, with Tenbury Union Workhouse the first building to the east of the Teme Bridge. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland, CC-BY (NLS)

The hospital was established in a converted house in 1869, and originally called St Mary’s Cottage Hospital. The early nineteenth century house was extended westwards around the turn of the century. The extension is probably the part shown on the postcard to the left, with veranda and balcony. In the 20th century the hospital expanded on its east side. It is currently (2024) a community hospital administered by Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust.

*The cottage hospital at Tenbury from the 25-inch OS map surveyed in 1883. CC-BY (NLS)*

The original building seems to have been listed because of its interest as a house. It was built around 1835 by Richard Titt, landlord of the Swan Hotel, who died in 1843, aged 86, having been the Swan’s landlord for over 40 years. However, it is also historically important as an early example of a cottage hospital in England, having opened on 1 September 1869. This was only ten years after the very first cottage hospital which opened in 1859: Cranleigh Cottage Hospital, Surrey. It is particularly rare to find a first-generation cottage hospital still using its original building.

*The 1902 OS map shows the small western extension of the cottage hospital. CC-BY (NLS)*

The hospital featured in Horace Swete’s Handy Book of Cottage Hospitals published in 1870. Swete described the hospital as a ‘small villa, with garden, coach-house and stable, altered for the purpose’. Patients contributed a small fee towards the cost of their care and treatment, charged at a weekly rate. Mrs Arabella Prescott served as the lady president of the establishment, and it was she who had purchased the house and footed the bill for fitting it up as a hospital, including the provision of linen, dressing-gowns and slippers for the use of the patients.

*Cranleigh village hospital was the first of its kind, opening in 1859 and featured as the frontispiece of Horace Swete’s* Handy Book of Cottage Hospitals *published in 1870.*

There was no connection to a mains sewer, so earth closets (or ‘earth commodes’ as Swete termed them), were used throughout the hospital. The floors were waxed and polished ‘with a view to greater cleanliness’, but Swete was critical of this, as it might make the floors slippery: ‘A poor fellow getting out on his crutches for the first time, would find considerable difficulty in walking upon it without falling’.

The hospital had a convalescent ward, and the coach-house was converted into a mortuary chamber, top-lit and fitted with a slate-topped table. The nurse in Swete’s time had formerly been a sister at Middlesborough Cottage Hospital. By 1910 the Tenbury cottage hospital had 9 beds, later extended to 12. An extension was built on the east side of the original house in 1912 named the Elizabeth Wing.

In 1915 the hospital featured in Henry C. Burdett’s How to Become a Nurse which listed the requirements for of various hospitals for trainees. St Mary’s, as it was then still known, took on young women for a month’s trial after a personal interview, which if satisfactory, led to one year’s training. Women had to be between 20 and 22 years of age, between 5ft 2in (1.57m) and 5ft 11in (1.80m) in height, with satisfactory evidence as to character and health. ‘Applicants should be of the upper middle class and Church of England’. Training included lectures by the matron on anatomy, and examinations were held twice yearly. ‘Laundry and text-books provided. Separate bedrooms.’

*H. C. Burdett’s* How to Become a Nurse, *1915*

Although the hospital charged fees for admission and subscriptions from wealthier supporters, fund raising was an essential activity. Church collections were the main source of ad hoc donations. The nearby Swan Hotel hosted an ‘invitation charity ball’ in December 1884, and in 1899 and 1900 a ‘guess the weight of a cake’ competition. The Hotel later instituted an annual ball which took place until the outbreak of the First World War. Nevertheless, by the later 1890s the hospital’s income did not meet its expenditure, causing the hospital to dip into its endowment funds.

St Mary’s survived into the 1920s, but had to close in 1928 in the face of rising costs and staffing difficulties. All was not lost, and in 1931 it was re-orgnised and re-opened as Tenbury and District Hospital, with a further extension to the east opened in 1935 to provide an operating theatre. In the hospitals survey conducted by the Ministry of Health during the war it was described as having 16 beds, maintained by the Tenbury and District Hospital and Nursing Association. Six local general practitioners formed the honorary medical officers alongside a general surgeon from Leominster, an ear and throat surgeon from Kidderminster and a dental surgeon.

Under the NHS the hospital was well supported by the local league of friends. Expansions and modernisation improved facilities, and in 1986 a new outpatients department was built. A Millennium Project provided a further extension .

[Sources: Tenbury and District Civic and Historical Society, Tenbury and the Teme Valley People and Places, 2007: Horace Swete, Handy Book of Cottage Hospitals, 1870, pp.161-2: Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, 1908: Worcester Journal, 5 Jan. 1843, p.3: Wellington Journal, 27 October 1877, p.8: Tenbury Wells Advertiser, 16 Dec 1884, p.4; 31 Oct. 1899, p.5; 30 Jan. 1900, p.5: Kington Times, 6 July 1935, p.4: Ministry of Health, Hospital Survey. The Hospital Services of the West Midlands Area, 1945.]

Lost Hospitals of Northumberland

April 12, 2024March 21, 2025 / Harriet Richardson / Leave a comment

Over the past few months the Northumberland page has been thoroughly revised and expanded. The page covers hospitals within the current county of Northumberland, there is a separate pages for Tyne & Weir that covers Newcastle. Historic maps of the sites have been added in, and short accounts of the history of each building added, mostly based on the reports written for the Royal Commission’s Hospital Survey carried out in the 1990s. At that time many more of the pre-NHS hospitals were still in use, and others still standing. Although not all the historic hospitals of Northumberland have been lost, a great many have been demolished. The Royal Commission hospital files include now rare record photography of demolished sites. They can be found at Historic England Archive, based in Swindon, and can be seen by the public.

Berwick Infirmary, photographed by Bill Harrison in 2017, from **Geograph**

There are now twelve NHS hospitals in Northumberland with in-patient facilities: Berwick Infirmary; Blyth Community Hospital; Alnwick Infirmary; Haltwhistle War Memorial Hospital; North Tyneside General Hospital; Hexham General Hospital; Rothbury Community Hospital; Wansbeck General Hospital; Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital, Cramlington; St George’s Park, Morpeth; Ferndene, Prudhoe and Northgate Hospital, Morpeth. (There are other clinics and health centres that treat out-patients.)

Alnwick Infirmary, photographed in 2011 by Michael Dibb from **Geograph**

Historically Newcastle provided the main hospital services for the county, with large teaching and specialist hospitals. Most of the population was concentrated in the city, the rest of the large county having a scattered population resulting in a network of relatively small hospitals. There have been at least thirty-five hospitals in Northumberland outside Newcastle in the past, including workhouses that would have had small infirmaries for the sick. That number does not include private nursing homes, which are generally not included on the historic-hospitals website (although I have slowly been adding ones that come to my attention). There are various reasons for their general exclusion, but mostly it is because they tended to occupy converted buildings, and the main focus of the historic-hospitals site is to explore the design of purpose-built hospitals.

Berwick Workhouse from the OS Town Plan published in 1852, reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland CC-BY (NLS). The early ordnance survey maps often include ground plans of public buildings, such as hospitals.

The large reduction in the number of hospitals now part of the National Health Service reflects the way in-patient care has developed, with patients spending less time in hospital and more procedures being done in out-patient clinics or day-care units. Plans for post-war reconstruction and the need for some form of national health service were addressed during the Second World War. A national survey of hospitals was commenced in 1942, that was published in 1946. It covered most hospitals but excluded those for mental illnesses or disabilities, and few private nursing homes. The survey, together with the recommendations made in the published reports, laid the foundations for the administrative organisation of the NHS.

The report on the hospitals in the North East of England did not paint a rosy picture. The general acute hospitals were mostly found to be out-of-date, too small, and on sites that did not allow for expansion. Out-patient departments were particularly poor, inconvenient and cramped. Even then it was recognised that the demands on out-patient departments had steadily increased in step with medical progress, and would continue to do so ‘departments that were once regarded with pride are now recognised as hopelessly inadequate’. The rise in specialisms was also impacting on the problem, as new clinics had to somehow be shoe-horned into existing buildings. In those days there were no appointment systems in place, which only added to the difficulties. The survey recognised that some improvements had been made before the war, but many more plans had been set aside in 1939.

Marshall Meadows, near Berwick upon Tweed, now a country house hotel, was a hospital between 1939 and 1958. Photographed by Rod Allday in 2009, from **Geograph**

About 23 hospitals in the county of Northumberland were transferred to the NHS in 1948. These were nine cottage hospitals, three of the five former workhouses in the county, five out of the eight infectious diseases hospitals, three sanatoria (for tuberculosis), two smallpox hospitals, and one maternity hospital. They fell within the administrative area of the Newcastle Regional Hospital Board, a huge area that stretched across to Cumbria and down to Sunderland, Teeside, County Durham and parts of North Yorkshire. Day-to-day administration was carried out by 33 Hospital Management Committees. This remained the case until the 1974 reorganisation of the NHS which saw the introduction of smaller area health authorities. In the early 1990s most of the hospitals transferred in 1948 were still either in use or at least still standing. Many have been demolished relatively recently. Only Berwick and Alnwick Infirmaries continue in some of their original buildings to this day.

Ovenstone Hospital, Fife

March 10, 2024March 21, 2025 / Harriet Richardson / Leave a comment

*Former Ovenstone Hospital, photographed February 2023*, *© H. Blakeman*

Ovenstone Hospital opened in 1896. It was a small infectious diseases hospital built on rising ground about two miles to the north of Pittenweem, in the East Neuk of Fife. It was established by the St Andrew’s District Committee of Fife’s County Council, and designed by the local St Andrew’s architect David Henry. The total cost was around £2,500 including furnishing. [Dundee Courier, 18 Jan. 1896, p.5.] The two-storey building at the centre provided accommodation for the nursing and domestic staff as well as the main kitchen and stores. The wards occupied the wings on either side and are set at right-angles to it. Each ward was on the standard pattern with central duty room and a small ward at each end.

*Ovenstone Hospital from the 25-inch OS map revised in 1912, reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland CC-BY (NLS)*

Having been completed and furnished by the end of 1895, opening was delayed because of dampness. On the instruction the architect, fires had been kept lit in order to get the rooms dried through the latter part of January. Dr Pirie of Pittenweem was appointed visiting medical attendant, and the first patient was admitted in February 1896: a farm servant from the Mount Melville district suffering from scarlet fever. [East Fife Record, 21 Feb. 1896, p.4; 20 March 1896, p.4.]

*One of the former* *ward block, photographed February 2023 © H. Blakeman*

The hospital opened the year before the Public Health Act of 1897 which made the provision of hospitals for infectious diseases by local authorities mandatory. The burden on the rates of contributing to the upkeep of permanent hospitals was often a bone of contention amongst local councillors. The Provost of Anstruther argued against the Town Council contributing to the Ovenstone Hospital and thereby having the use of it for infectious cases in the town. He favoured the purchase of a ‘small iron hospital’ which might be bought for £40 or £50, put up and taken down whenever suitable, and stored in the old washing-house when not in use. [East of Fife Record, 28 Feb. 1896, p.6.]

*South elevation of the ambulance garage and disinfection range, February 2023* *© H. Blakeman*

As well as the central administrative block and the two flanking ward wings, a detached block to the south accommodated the ambulance and disinfector. There was probably a mortuary in this building too. The architect had visited a hospital in Whitehaven, in the north of England, with the County Medical Officer, Dr Nasmyth, on the strength of which a Reck’s disinfector was acquired for the hospital. The ambulance carriage that conveyed patients to the hospital was made by Holmes of Derby.

*Ovenstone Hospital, c.1920-30 © Courtesy of HES (Francis M Chrystal Collection)*

An extension of the hospital was carried out in 1910-11 for which David Henry was again the architect, the hospital was closed for a while during building works. The original horse-drawn Haynes’ ambulance was still in occasional use in the early 1930s, although by then it was felt to be something of a museum piece. [Fife County Council Annual Report, 1933, p.90.]

*View from the south-west, February 2023*, © *H. Blakeman*

By 1942 Ovenstone Hospital had 16 beds, the patients being under the care of one of the local general practitioners. By this date the hospital was judged to be in need of some modernisation: there was no electric light, the wards being lit by oil lamps and heating by an open fires that also heating a pipe running round the edge of the ward. The hospital was not connected to mains sewage but to a cesspool in the grounds. The cooking arrangements were also not up to scratch. It was therefore not deemed suitable to continue as an infectious diseases hospital after the War, but with its substantial buildings, pleasant situation and garden, might be adapted as a home for the elderly and infirm or ‘other similar purpose’. [Department of Health for Scotland, Scottihs Hospitals Survey Report on the South-Eastern Region, 1946, p.84.]

*Probably the former ambulance garage, disinfecting room and mortuary*, *photographed February 2023 © H. Blakeman*

Paraffin lamps were still the only source of lighting in the wards in 1947. The County Council appealed to the Scottish Secretary of State to have electricity installed, and the Dundee Courier seized the opportunity to publish a photograph of a young nurse carrying two oil lamps with the caption ‘Lady of the Lamps’. [Dundee Courier, 21 Jan. 1947, p.3.] Around this time the hospital accommodated convalescent children. It did not transfer to the NHS in 1948, but remained a convalescent home run by Fife County Council. In the 1960s it developed into a residential school for children with a range of additional support needs. Initially it was known as Ovenstone Children’s Home, and by the mid-1970s as Ovenstone Residential School. It was still operating in the early 1990s.

*Ovenstone Hospital on the OS map revised in 1968 CC-BY (NLS)*

The building to the east of the original hospital buildings was added some time in the later 1950s or early ’60s, perhaps as a classroom.

*post-war addition to site, photographed February 2023 © H. Blakeman*

In recent years the former school was turned into an arts centre: Cobalt Contemporary Art Gallery.

Graylingwell

February 9, 2024March 21, 2025 / Harriet Richardson / Leave a comment

Graylingwell Hospital, to the north of Chichester, opened in July 1897. It was originally built as the West Sussex County Asylum to ease overcrowding at the main county asylum at Haywards Health. The hospital was for ‘pauper lunatics’. The plans were drawn up by Sir Arthur W. Blomfield and Sons in 1895 and building work began in May of that year. The building contractors were Messrs James Langley & Co. of Crawley, and the estimated cost of construction £114,669.

*Site of Graylingwell Hospital, from the one-inch OS map revised in 1893, reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Scotland, CC-BY (NLS)*

The site was some way to the north of Chichester, just to the east of Chichester Barracks, formerly occupied by Graylingwell farm. The farmhouse, steading and the ‘grayling well’ were retained for the use of the hospital.

*Former Graylingwell hospital, 25-inch OS map revised 1896, CC-BY (NLS)*

The main complex was designed on an échelon plan of the standard type with the administration block at the centre to the north, the recreation hall, kitchen and stores at the centre and the patients’ pavilions arranged in an arc, off the outer corridor. It was a plan that allowed the patients’ blocks each to have an unobstructed southerly view. Most of the blocks are of two storeys. A chapel was provided to the north of the administration block and a separate hospital for infectious diseases was built to the north-east near the farm buildings and the old Graylingwell house.

*Central south elevation of the former hospital*, *June 1992*

The main hospital buildings are in Queen Anne style, the administration block the most ornate with its grey stone dressings and central pedimented bay. The main entrance was given classical details on the door surround, surmounted by a broken segmental pediment, over that is a Venetian window, and up again to an oeuil de boeuf window in the pediment. A clock tower sits at the apex of the roof. Within the matron had rooms on the first floor above the entrance.

*Graylingwell Hospital, one of the patients’ pavilions* *on the east side of the main complex, photographed June 1992*

The administration block was one of the most attractive blocks on the site, but the patients’ blocks were also pleasing, though not so highly embellished. The accommodation within the patients’ blocks followed a ‘gallery ward’ arrangement, the gallery being the main day space for patients, furnished with books, papers and games. The dormitories had polished pitch pine floors, were furnished with iron bedsteads, with wire mesh spring mattresses (‘Lawson Tait’ mesh), hair mattresses and bolsters, and white quilts. They were overlooked by one or two attendant’s rooms wit glass panelled doors looking into the dormitory. Single rooms off the dormitories provided for restless or noisy patients. Connecting the various sections of the main complex were the corridors and beneath these ‘great subways, through which a man may walk’.

*Patients’ pavilion, south end of the main complex*

To either side of the administration block were workshops, the boiler house, laundry and the mortuary. If they were able, the male patients spent their days either in the workshops, engaged in work such as shoemaking, tailoring, or plumbing, in the gardens or on the farm. Women worked in the kitchen, laundry or work-rooms. The patients’ pavilions were arranged around the edge of the semi-circular complex. They were all constructed of red brick with grey stone quoins and grey slate hipped roofs. There were four pavilions to the west and five to the east. This would suggest that the female side was the larger east side, as female patients generally out-numbered the male patients. When the asylum opened, the local newspaper carried a lengthy report on the buildings, noting how such hospitals had changed for the better over the last sixty years: ‘Every effort is made to abolish the ‘institution’ and to establish a “home” or at worst a “hospital”.’ [The Observer and West Sussex Recorder, 28 July 1897.]

The elegant Medical Superintendent’s house, situated just to the south-west of the complex, was attached to the perimeter link corridor by its own private corridor, like an umbilical cord. The two-storey and attic house was not much smaller than the whole of the administration block and was similarly detailed. The first medical superintendent was Dr Kidd, the head of a staff of around 95. The assistant medical oficer was Dr Steen. Miss Baines was the first matron; Mr Newman the steward and clerk; Mr Newman the head attendant.

At the centre of the complex, behind the administration block, were the communal service areas, such as the kitchen and stores, and the large recreation hall. The latter was next to the main kitchen and also served as the dining hall. There was a gallery at one end and a stage, complete with orchestra pit, at the other. The proscenium arch is ornamented simply with pairs of half-fluted pilasters resting on high plinths which flank the stage. The Observer and West Sussex Recorder noted the plans for dances, theatrical entertainments and concerts to be held in the ‘magnificent theatre’ during the winters, and out-door entertainment once a week in the summer with the Asylum band.

The chapel has quite a different character. Queen Anne gave way to simple Early English gothic, and red brick was replaced by flint. It is a chapel of great charm, with the air of a small parish church. It comprises a four-bay nave with side aisles screened by a pointed-arched arcade. The side aisles are lit by single lancets and the clerestorey above by quatrefoils. The west wall had two pairs of lancets containing stained glass. The chancel comprised a short choir and sanctuary with a mosaic altar-piece. The east window was a triple lancet with fine figurative glass by Heaton, Butler and Bayne of London. When the asylum first opened, all able patients attended chapel every day for morning prayer.

*Stained-glass window in the chapel* *at the west end.*

The photograph of the chapel above shows the twin entrances that were typical of asylum chapels, allowing separate entrances for men and women, and with a room to the side that could be used to remove a patient from the service if they were unwell, disturbed or noisy.

*Side elevation of Graylingwell chapel, photographed in 2005 after the hospital’s closure*

*Chapel interior*, *looking towards the west end.*

*Chapel interior, from the choir, looking towards the entrance at the east end*

The long drive up to the entrance was planted with lime trees to created an avenue, while a separate road provided access for deliveries. The layout of the gardens and grounds were planned by Mr Lloyd of the Surrey County Asylum at Brookwood, and were laid out by the head gardener at Graylingwell, a Mr Peacock, with the help of 22 workmen. Creepers were planted to soften the buildings.

*former infectious diseases hospital at Graylingwell*

The separate infectious diseases hospital to the north-east of the site comprised a single-storey, symmetrical, south-facing ward block, with sanitary annexes to the rear, joined by a single-storey link corridor to a two-storey north block. Again, it is constructed of red brick but the decorative elements are even more sparse, although it does have two rather jolly roof ventilators on the ward block and also a pleasing porch come glazed verandah at the centre.

In the 1930s a nurses’ home was built to the north-east of the chapel. This rather austere, three-storey, 13-bay, hip-roofed block had its appearance greatly improved by the rampant vegetation which covered most of the south front. Stone quoins could just be seen, peeping from under the foliage. At the same time as the nurses’ home was built, two blocks were added to the south-east of the site. The more northerly and larger had become the Richmond Day Hospital by the early 1990s. It was a symmetrical E-plan, two-storey block. The long, main south front had verandas on either side of the central projecting bay, stylistically blending in well with the original patients’ pavilions.

*Graylingwell Hospital from the 25-inch OS map revised in 1932 CC-BY (NLS)*

The block to the south of of the day hospital, and about half its side, was named Kingsmead in the 1990s. It was similar in style to the Richmond Day Hospital. Another contemporary building was named Summersdale, situated on the north-west side of the site. It had a foundation stone, inscribed with the date 29 October 1931.

*Graylingwell Hospital, pavilion on the north-east side of the hospital complex, photographed in 2005 after closure.*

There were some post-war additions to the site, mostly on a small scale, such as the day-rooms added to the patients’ pavilion on the north-east side of the complex (see above). This looks to have been an addition dating to the 1960s, and is more stylish than usual. As yet I have found no information about the work, but I would guess that it was designed in house by the South West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board’s architect’s department. The architect to the Board from about 1956 to 1968 was Richard Mellor, F.R.I.B.A., formerly architect to the Leeds Regional Hospital Board (where he was succeeded by P. B. Nash). In 1968 Mellor was succeed as architect to the South West Metropolitan Regional Board by B. W. East .

*Graylingwell Hospital, patients’ pavilions in 2005.*

By the 1990s although closure was mooted, the grounds were still well maintained and the larger elements of the original planting, namely the trees and shrubs, were still very much in evidence. There was a mixed variety of species with particularly fine trees around the Medical Superintendent’s house and the administration block and chapel, where there was a mixture of evergreens and deciduous trees, including the obligatory Yew tree by the chapel.

Since closure a large housing development has been built on the site, incorporating and adapting some of the old hospital buildings: the main patients’ pavilions of the original complex and the administration block (the Clock House) have been detached from their ancillary buildings and converted into flats, while infill housing has been built in place of the recreation hall, kitchens, workshops, laundry etc. The chapel has been retained and the water tower, medical superintendent’s house, and parts of the isolation hospital. Summersdale House is now the Harold Kidd Unit, for the care of the elderly, those with dementia and other mental health conditions, but the Richmond Day Hospital and the Kingsmead block have been demolished. Further mental health facilities have been provided to the south of the site in the Centurion Mental Health Centre and Jupiter House built in 2001.

Dorset’s hospitals

January 5, 2024January 5, 2024 / Harriet Richardson / Leave a comment

*Royal National Sanatorium, Bournemouth*

Many of the pages on the historic hospitals website, particularly those for some of the counties in England, have nothing more than a list of sites. Towards the end of last year I began the process of revising those pages. In November I received a query about the location of Sherborne Isolation Hospital. The local museum and library had been unable to help, so I turned my attention to the Dorset page. With the help of digimap and the National Library of Scotland’s map pages online I managed to find Sherbonre’s isolation hospital, to the north-west of the town off the Marston Road, on the site now occupied by Barton Farmhouse.

*Sherborne Isolation Hospital, OS map 1927* (CC-BY NLS)

As yet I have found little else about the hospital – from the map evidence alone it must have been built some time between 1903 and 1927, and was built by the Urban District Council, but it’s a start. At the moment I am just keen to add as much to the page as quickly as I can, so further research will have to wait. If anyone is interested, there may well be more information in the building file at Historic England Archives (the reference is BF 100425).

It was interesting to see how many hospitals that had still been part of the NHS in the early 1990s have since closed. Quite a few have been demolished either completely or partially. The postcard of the Royal National Sanatorium at the top of this post was still the Royal National Hospital until the ’90s when it was converted into retirement apartments. The Shelley Road Branch of the Royal Victoria and West Hampshire Hospital has been largely demolished, as has the former Bridport General Hospital, replaced by a new community hospital in the ’90s. More recently, the remaining sections of the Christchurch Union Workhouse (part of Christchurch Hospital) were demolished around 2015.

*Part of Christchurch Hospital, demolished* c.2015

The large Royal Naval Hospital on Portland has also mostly now disappeared, the former sick quarters went around 2005 to create Foylebank Way, retirement housing. Only one pavilion of the hospital has been retained, adapted to form the present Portland Community Hospital.

*The former Portland Hospital, photographed in the early 1990s.*

Another loss is the former Princess Christian Hospital and Sanatorium in Weymouth. This striking building was put up at the beginning of the twentieth century, designed by local architects Crickmay & Son. It was taken over as a military hospital during the First World War, and when it was returned to civilian use it, merged with Weymouth’s Royal Hospital on School Street and was renamed Weymouth and District Hospital. Various extensions were built in the 1920s and ’30s, and after bomb damage during the Second World War, the out-patients’ block had to be rebuilt. In 1998 the site was cleared to make way for a new community hospital.

*Princess Christian Hospital, postcard* c.1905

There are some surviving historic hospitals in Dorset. A few still in the NHS estate, others adapted to new uses. My own personal favourite is probably the former St Anne’s Sanatorium in Poole, designed by the Scottish architect Robert Weir Shultz and built in 1909-12 as the seaside branch of Holloway Sanatorium.

*St Anne’s Hospital, photographed in the early 1990s.*

St Anne’s remains in hospital use, and continues as a mental health facility. Google street view allows you to take a virtual walk round the outside of the main building. The facing bricks look much redder than in the photograph above. There is also a new wing – opened in 2013 – that respects the Edwardian building in scale and materials without being a pastiche.

The Dorset page now looks a lot more interesting, there are photos and maps, and some snippets of history. That will have to do for the time being, while I get on with revising some of the other pages. I have enjoyed my virtual tour of Dorset, though saddened to find so many buildings have been lost. As always, I welcome any additions to the site if you have photographs that you are willing to share.

Portree Hospital

December 19, 2022May 3, 2023 / Harriet Richardson / Leave a comment

In the early 1960s the NHS built a new hospital at Portree and substantially enlarged and extended the Mackinnon Memorial Hospital at Broadford. There was considerable controversy surrounding these projects at the time. From a cost and efficiency point of view, the Northern Regional Hospital Board wanted just one central hospital and Broadford was their preferred location being nearer to the mainland and therefore easier for visiting consultant specialists. But Skye is a large island community, with its population fairly evenly spread between north a south, making travel on narrow roads in bad weather less than ideal, especially for maternity cases. Even today, the journey by car from the far north of the island to the bridge that links Skye to the mainland in the south can take around two hours, in good weather during the summer. Until the mid-1990s you would have to add in the time for a ferry crossing to the mainland, as the bridge was only opened in 1995.

*View of the garden front of Portree Hospital*, *photographed October 2020, © H. Richardson*

The two new hospital buildings still resulted in a reduced and rationalised service, as four hospitals had been transferred to the National Health Service in 1948, whereas today just two are in operation. The new hospital at Portree replaced the old fever hospital there and prompted the closure of the John Martin Hospital at Uig (also in the north of the island). The small Gesto Hospital, at Edinbane continued in use until 2007, having staved off successive attempts at closure from the 1990s.

*Former Gesto Hospital, Edinbane, Skye, photographed in 2010, © Carol Walker*

Replacing the hospitals on Skye with a single new one had been proposed during the Second World War when the existing hospitals had been surveyed in 1942 as part of the groundwork leading up to establishing a national health service after the war. This national survey of hospital buildings was undertaken by pairs of medical professionals who were assigned one of five regions. Questionnaires were sent out to all the hospitals providing basic information about the number of beds available, the type of patients catered for, etc. The Survey was published in 1946, and fairly recently the Wellcome Library has digitised the reports which can be accessed online either via the Wellcome or on the Internet Archive.

*View of Portree Harbour. The hospital is further round to the right, out of shot. Photographed October 2020, © H. Richardson,*

The Report for the Northern Region suggested that Portree might be the most suitable location for this single new hospital for the island. But no further progress was made either immediately after the war or in the early years following the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948. When the Northern Regional Hospital Board decided to build a new hospital it favoured Broadford over Portree, as not only was it more convenient for consultants from the mainland, but a hospital located there could also serve parts of the adjacent mainland. The local Board of Management and the local general practitioners were brought on side, and the proposal was supported by the Department of Health. However, when it was announced to the public in 1951 there was a local outcry. The Secretary of State for Scotland, James Stuart, promised the local Inverness MP, Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton, that in view of the strong feeling in Skye, he would see that no final decision on the location of the new hospital would be made without ‘direct consultation with local people’.

*Large-scale OS map surveyed 1965, reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland (CC-BY) NLS*

Matters stalled following the economic restrictions imposed after 1951, with the outbreak of the Korean War and Britain’s support of the U.S.A. leading to funds being redirected from welfare to re-armament. The question of a new hospital for Skye was not revived until 1954 when fresh proposals for an addition of 12 beds to the Broadford hospital was put forward to the Department of Health by the Chairman of the Northern Regional Hospital Board. Although the Department was supportive, there remained the issue of the Secretary of State’s promise about local consultation.

*View of the north side of the hospital, with the original out-patients’ wing on the right*, *photographed October 2020, © H. Richardson,*

How that consultation might be done was discussed between the Regional Board and the Department’s officers in the Spring of 1956. The limited funding and a general lack of clear understanding between the Department in Edinburgh and the Regional Board in Inverness meant that no further progress was made. In 1958 an internal inquiry was held, the Department being reconciled to the need to go to exceptional lengths to placate local feeling. The compromise reached was to run two hospitals, with a new one at Portree and an extension to the one in Broadford, much to the irritation of the Regional Board who only gave up on their wish for a single, larger hospital, with considerable reluctance.

*Detailed view of the former out-patients’ wing, with its curved end*, *photographed October 2020, © H. Richardson,*

The Regional Architect, David Polson Hall, was put in charge of the design and planning of the new buildings. Polson Hall was originally from Stonehaven and had studied architecture in Aberdeen in the 1920s before becoming chief assistant to the architect R. Leslie Rollo in 1931. In 1954, Polson Hall and colleagues at the Regional Board visited the RIBA Exhibition on the Design of Health Buildings. The two projects on Skye proceeded in tandem. Estimates for the Portree hospital were received in 1961, but were higher than the amount available so revisions to the plans had to be made. Final working drawings were not completed until May 1962, and work finally got under way in March 1963.

*View from the north-west*, *photographed October 2020, © H. Richardson*

It is difficult not to see Portree hospital as old-fashioned, in architectural style if not in plan. It is a small L-shaped, single-storey and attic building set into the hillside. A contemporary photograph (see below) taken when the hospital was opened makes it appear over-scaled compared with the neighbouring houses, despite its smallness as a hospital. The construction was traditional, in synthetic stone and brickwork, roughcast with pitched roof finished in green slates. The long, west side of the hospital contained the in-patient accommodation, with wards and a day room on the west side of the long axial corridor commanding a fine view over the bay (see plan below). The east side of the corridor had ancillary rooms: WCs, bath, sterilising room, labour room, stores and Matron’s office. The main entrance was on this side, leading to a waiting area and staff office. There were twelve beds in all, half of which were for maternity cases. The largest ward had four beds, the others were three twin rooms and two singles.

*View of Portree Hospital from across the estuary just after it opened. From* The Hospital, *September 1965*

The shorter wing to the north housed a small out-patients’ clinic, with a separate entrance and waiting area. The hospital was to be attended by visiting consultants but would be run by two local practitioners, the first in post were Dr John Morrison of Portree and Dr Calum Og MacRae from Uig.

*Photograph taken in about 1989-90 before the curved end of the out-patients’ wing was filled in and raised a storey.* *© H. Richardson,*

At the entrance to the out-patients’ clinic, the chief architectural feature was the semi-circular porch – a faint echo of a pre-war era of an ocean liner moderne aesthetic. Its original perky seaside charm was marred by infilling and the addition of a second storey in 2005-6. Prosaically enough, the porch was intended as a pram shelter. The attic floor had accommodation for ten resident staff. There were fireplaces in the sitting rooms in addition to central heating, the decoration was described in The Hospital as ‘contemporary in light tone colours with wallpaper used in the sitting rooms, main hall, etc. The furnishings are all of contemporary design in vivid bright colours to show up against the light-coloured walls.’

*Ground plan of the hospital as originally built, from* The Hospital, *September 1965*

Portree hospital was officially opened on 31 March 1965 by A. A. Hughes, Under-Secretary at the Scottish home and Health Department. I am not quite sure what its future is. A new hospital has been built next to the MacKinnon Memorial at Broadford, so the fate of the older hospital there is perhaps also in doubt.

Further Information and references: J. C. Leslie and S. J. Leslie, History of Highland Hospitals The Hospitals of Skye, 2011, Old Manse Books, Avoch, Scotland. Department of Health files at the National Records of Scotland, Minutes of the Northern Regional Hospital Board are at Highlands Archives in Inverness.

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