Harold Wood Hospital was a hospital in northeast London, United Kingdom. It was located in Gubbins Lane, Harold Wood, in the London Borough of Havering. The Havering Campus of London South Bank University, an NHS polyclinic and a long term conditions unit continue to operate at the hospital site, and a residential development by Countryside Properties is planned.
The hospital was opened in 1909 by West Ham County Borough council, as the Grange convalescent home for children, which operated with the nearby Plaistow fever hospital. The Grange had been a private house, built in 1884 by John Compton, owner of the Gubbins estate. The convalescent home was maintained by the county borough until the Second World War, as an emergency hospital. After the war it became a permanent hospital, and in the 1960s was significantly enlarged.
The hospital later became part of the Barking, Havering and Redbridge Hospitals NHS Trust. It was closed on 13 December 2006 with patients and functions relocated to Queen's Hospital and to King George Hospital in Redbridge. The site vacated by the hospital has been earmarked for a 470-home housing development. The original plan to keep certain NHS facilities has been superseded and the entire plot has been approved for residential development. Local residents are opposing the proposal of over 800 dwellings, including a 9 storey block.
Famous quotes containing the words harold, wood and/or hospital:
“Well, at least I have the satisfaction of having destroyed a terrible monster, and in doing so rid the world of an awful curse.”
—Griffin Jay, and Harold Young. Stephen Banning (Dick Foran)
“bodies wrapped in elastic bands,
bodies cased in wood or used like telephones,
bodies crucified up onto their crutches,
bodies wearing rubber bags between their legs,
bodies vomiting up their juice like detergent,
bodies smooth and bare as darning eggs.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Time rushes toward us with its hospital tray of infinitely varied narcotics, even while it is preparing us for its inevitably fatal operation.”
—Tennessee Williams (1914–1983)