Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral Now and Then Old Hospital photographs

My dad was a fitter for all the NHS hospitals in the wirral for 30years! He was in charge of the maintenance from the boilers to the draw handles and was his job to allocate the work to each department / engineer!! I was taken into all these hospitals and clinics as a kid at weekends to "help out" som great old sights behind the scenes!! I remember Leasowe, Mill lane, old VCH in Liscard and St Caths!
i was born in Birkenhead Childrens Hospital in 1965!!

good work guys/girls very interesting

I thought the following information on the Leasowe Road Hospital may be of interest, I found it while going through some old Wirral Journals:

"Leasowe Sanatorium for Crippled Children and Hospital for Surgical Tuberculosis, to give it its original full name, was built through the driving force of Margaret Beavan who was the first woman Mayor of Liverpool in 1927/28. The idea for the Leasowe Sanatorium was first mooted in 1911 and subsequently a public appeal raised over £6,700 including several large donations from local shipping families, the Holts, Brocklebanks and Harrisons as well as from Mr A V Paton himself. The site itself had earlier been set aside for a smallpox isolation hospital, the land having been purchased but the development never going ahead.

Subsequently the foundation stone was laid on 21st July 1914 by Lord Derby, although the stone is inscribed 'laid by the Countess of Derby' (she was indisposed on the day!). The first patients arrived very soon afterwards onto the unusual 'open-air' wards.

Through the 20s, 30s and early 40s it served as a tuberculosis hospital not only for children but also for adults. With the development of the streptomycin antibiotic in the late 40s and early 50s the scourge of TB was largely conquered and the hospital gradually changed over to general medical use, specialising in burns and skin grafts as well as arthritis up to its closure in 1979. It subsequently served as a Christian Centre, retirement home and handicap centre before its final sad disappearance earlier this year [2000]."

[abridged from an article by Gordon Parker in the Wirral Champion Journal, Summer 2000]

Wow, thanks, you have got some good information there, there doesnt seem to be much about this place on the net.

:Happy:

I remember patients being out on the balconies in their beds at St. Catherines in the 1960s. I doubt if that was where your cousin was, though, unless the woodland was Mersey Park?

Birkenhead Ladies' Charitable Institution and Lying-In Hospital, 24 Grange mount, Birkenhead lol! I never knew that was the old name! I spent a week or so there after having my first son in St. Caths. in 1977. About 6 of us were transported there in a very rickety ambulance, all clutching our new babies. Grange Mount was a lovely place to be. There was an open fire in the ward and the nurses would sit there and knit! I remember the food was great too.

this site has nice picture of st catherines when it was a work house but i could not copy the picture

http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Birkenhead

I was in the old VCH in 1963 as a two year old scald patient and then from 1992 for 7 years worked as maintenance from St Caths but covering Mill lane and various Wirral clinics.

I didn't realize it at the time but both Mill Lane and St Caths had some great urban exploration places that I would love to revisit!
Spooky attics and underground maint corridors. I regret not taking photos at the time.

I was born in Mill Lane Maternity Hospital which is now the Minor injuries building (or was in 1998)and my great grandad is on the list of the war dead in the building.

St Caths,
A definate ghostly feel in one of the attics (we recorded some weird temperatures) and you could feel the change in the lack of heat as you walked through the space.

I think the hospital near Shorefields in New Ferry that Davey Martin is referring to was a special isolation hospital at the back of New Ferry Baths. I seem to remember it was a green wooden building and was used in the early 60s when there was an outbreak of smallpox in the area and several people died. In the early 70s ( I think), it was deliberately burned down by the fire brigade to make sure no infection survived. These are only vague memories and perhaps someone else has a fuller story.

Doncha just love piracy ?

Thats the one that was in leasowe!

Did ue their before it got knocked down, didnt use camera then though
Found lot and lots of paperwork in the attic of previous patients, the place was a goldmine of information but never took anything, guttered now, but i was only young at the time.

Heres a video submitted by soundlad which will be of significance to this post

[youtube]S9krEHZVQ-U[/youtube] Leasowe hospital 1:43

does anyone have any photos of the maternity hospital that was on grange mount, birkenhead (if they haven't already been posted)?? my bro and sis were born there, and now it's a load of posh gated flats, so i'm curious to see it

Torpenhow' Open Air School for Pre-Tubercular Children on Montgomery Hill, Frankby

This is now broken up into flats....

Has anyone got any more information about Torpenhow Open Air School?

This place seems to be a secret, I've looked into it before and not got very far.