| Date | 15 November 2013 |
|---|---|
| Source | Slough Observer |
| Reference | VP-0059 |
| Volume | Views of the Past |
| Collection | Views of the Past |
Transcript
Hospital for two wars
ONE building which has now been demolished and built over in recent years was the iconic Canadian Red Cross hospital which many Maidenonians will remember with affection.
In August 1914, Waldorf and Nancy Astor offered a covered tennis court as a possible hospital. Plans for a 100-bed hospital within the old tennis court were drawn up but this was later expanded to a greater number by Charles Hodgett, the London Commissioner of the Canadian Red Cross Hospital. It became known as the Duchess of Connaught Red Cross Hospital.
It was opened on February 12, 1915, and by March wounded soldiers were arriving from overseas. Nearby Taplow Lodge was used for staff accommodation as well as some of the nurses being accommodated in Cliveden House itself.
Later in 1915, Major Charles Skipper was employed to design an extension to the hospital which brought the number of available beds to 1,000.
The hospital was used in particular to treat victims of chemical warfare throughout the First World War. After the war the Astors re-let Cliveden Lodge and requested that the hospital be dismantled and returned to a green field.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, in October 1939, plans were put into place to reuse the WWI hospital site. The only portion not used was the old covered tennis court. The principal designers were A F B Anderson and the contractors were J Jarvis & Sons Ltd. The final cost of the building was £300,000 and the hospital treated some 25,068 patients during WWII.
After the war the Cliveden Estate passed to the National Trust and the hospital was presented to the Canadian Red Cross Society for use as a research centre for rheumatism in children and opened to the public in 1947. It soon afterwards became part of the fledgling National Health Service which was later to be the main reason for its closure. In the early 1950s, the hospital gained a large maternity unit and was also a training school for nursing and midwifery. A large proportion of Maidenhead’s babies estimated at more than 60,000 were born there.
The hospital closed in 1985 due to health authority budget cuts and over a number of years the hospital became derelict.
The buildings were demolished in 2006 to make way for a new housing development known as Cliveden Village.
CARE FOR THE WOUNDED: The Duchess of Connaught hospital, left, opened in 1915 to cater for wounded soldiers from abroad suffering from injuries of chemical warfare. The second Cliveden Red Cross Memorial Hospital built in 1939, right.
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