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

I would love to hear stories from St. Catherines. The hospital on Claremount road was the Wallasey cottage hospital. There are mock tudor flats built on the land now.

I think the hospital on Leasowe Road was the old Leasowe small pox hospital

Not a very good picture of it, but its the only one I can find. The hospital is the building beyond the telegraph pole in this 1910 picture of Claremount Road.



The hospital opened in 1885 and closed in August 1980. Nightingale Lodge was built on the site.

It doesnt look like the same building. This one was built in 1866 and was situated in Byron Cottage, Back Lane, which is now st. Georges Road. Isnt St Georges Road at the bottom by St. Mary's College? Which is a road away from claremount.Dont know if there were two hospitals situated close together, or the layout of roads has changed.

Here's one from a book I have of the hospital on claremount.

there used to be a hospital in new ferry years and years ago, long before i was born but it was demolished (not sure if that was through the war or wot) - there's still parts of it present (down shorefields, new ferry)

That's the one Sarah and it was on Claremount road not St Georges. Remember it quite well.

Leasowe hospital was built on concrete rafts because of the boggy ground. It was a general hospital long before the seventies although not an A & E one. I visited my father there in the early sixties. It was like a journey into the back of beyond in those days as no bus service went past the place from Wallasey. Had to get off at Reeds lane/Reeds Avenue and walk. It was especially bad on a Sunday with the limited bus service.

It's strange what we take for granted these days yet it was only a short while ago that virtually everything shut down on a Sunday and hardly anyone had a car. There were some crazy rules about what a small shop could sell on a Sunday as well. That's another thread perhaps?

Did that hospital have a balcony that the nurses' would push the patients out on? I remember going to see my cousin, he had something contagious, we came to the hospital through woodland but could only see him on a high balcony when he was pushed out for a short while.

The whole idea of the hospital was to initially treat children with smallpox but that changed some years later to the treatment of tubercolosis. It was believed that fresh air was the best cure so patients would often be wheeled out onto the balcony in all weathers.

Here is a list of Wirral Hospitals in 1939

Birkenhead General Hospital - Park Road North (est. 1828)
Birkenhead Infectious Diseases Hospital - Tollemache Rd
Birkenhead Institution Hospital - Church Road
Birkenhead Maternity Hospital - 24, 26, 30 & 35 Grange Mount (est. 1846)
Birkenhead Municipal Hospital - Church Road
Birkenhead & Wirral Children's Hospital - Woodchurch Rd and Kielberg Convalescent Home - Noctorum
Children's Convalescent Home - West Kirby
Clatterbridge General Hospital
Cleaver Sanatorium for Children - Heswall
Ellen Gonner Home for Convalescent Children - The Promenade, Hoylake
Hoylake & West Kirby Cottage Hospital and District Nursing Association - Birkenhead Rd
Liverpool Open Air Hospital for Children, the Margaret Beavan Hospital - Leasowe, Cheshire
Pensby Convalescent Home
Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital - Heswall
Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital - Thingwall
Spital Infectious Hospital
'Torpenhow' Open Air School for Pre-Tubercular Children - Frankby, West Kirby
Victoria Central Hospital - Wallasey (founded 1897, opened 1901)
Wallasey Cottage Hospital
Wallasey Dispensary - Liscard Rd, Wallasey

Two more, although both closed before 1939.

Mill Lane Infectious Disease Hospital, opened 1887 (but not in this building), later became a Maternity Hospital.



Greasby Isolation Hospital (pictured in the late 50s) opened in 1879, closed in the early 1920s, the buildings were demolished in the 1980s

That bottom one became the library. The top one was the infectious diseases part of Mill lane. It currently houses the records department. The maternity were single storey buildings. I was born there and my last child was born there before Arrowe park opened up.

A did you know. There is a magnificent memorial in this hospital and it names every Wallasey man to be killed in the first world war. Really it should be on show in a more prominent place but if recent events regarding defacing war memorials is anything to go by perhaps not!

I went to look for the Mill Lane hospital and thought it had been demolished and turned into a carpark, I couldnt find it. You would have to pay to be admitted to this hospital I think a pauper paid the equivalant of 25 pence a week, and that included food, a doctors visit nurse care and his ale for the week!

Here is a list of Wirral Hospitals in 1902, this is from Gore's street directory (the 1939 list above was from the official Red Book list), as you can see this list isn't as complete.

Birkenhead Borough Hospital
Birkenhead Fever Hospital, Tollemache road, Birkenhead
Birkenhead Ladies' Charitable Institution and Lying-In Hospital, 24 Grange mount, Birkenhead.
Greasby Fever Hospital, Greasby
St Paul's Road (Birkenhead) Mission Dispensary, 32 St Paul's road, Tranmere, Birkenhead
Victoria Central Hospital, Liscard road, Liscard
Wallasey Dispensary, Victoria Central Hospital, Liscard road, Liscard
Wallasey Cottage Hospital, Claremont road, Wallasey
Wirral Hospital and Dispensary for Sick Children, Woodchurch road, Birkenhead
Wirral Homeopathic Dispensary, 53 Exmouth street, Birkenhead.

I'm not sure what you mean Sarah. It is still there although slightly changed from the old days. It was mainly a maternity hospital throughout my life time until Arrowe park was built. At the present time they are building one of those super surgeries on the site and there is still a walk in centre. It is now known as Victoria central hospital but the original central used to be in Liscard road. Bit naughty changing the name I thought because the original Victoria central was a proper hospital with A & E etc. Had two major operations there as a kid. No MRSA in those days because the matron even scared that off.

I thought it was right at the back of the hospital, past the x ray department, backing onto the old alley way called the cinder path by the allotments. When I went again last week there was no building there anymore just a carpark.