The History of our Local Hospitals

As residents of Hastings and St Leonards, today we rely soley on the Conquest to see us through ill-health. But our town has been home to many hospitals over the past 150 years. We take a look at where our local ancestors went for medical care – even before the introduction of the NHS.

In 1841, Hastings Infirmary opened on the seafront where the White Rock Theatre now stands, the first sizeable medical institution in the town. It remained until 1886, when it was replaced with the much larger state-of-the-art East Sussex Hospital. In 1920, the East Sussex Hospital was demolished to make way for a music hall and, in 1923, it was replaced by the Royal East Sussex on Cambridge Road, which continued to serve the community until it closed in 1992.

In 1868, while Hastings Infirmary still stood on the seafront, a second infirmary opened as part of Hastings Union Workhouse. It was to become Hastings’ longest serving hospital. The workhouse had opened in the 1830s to provide basic lodgings for 160 paupers, and it soon became clear that many were desperately in need of medical attention. Known as Frederick Road Infirmary in 1920 and in 1930 the Hastings Municipal Hospital, it closed in 1948 with the introduction of the NHS, but reopened as St Helens Hospital. With 18 wards able to house more than 300 patients, the hospital had 800 members of staff and 120 volunteers. When it closed in 1994, St Helens had given 157 years of service to the local community. The main building was demolished in 1997 to make way for a housing estate, but the original workhouse infirmary has been converted into flats.

The next hospital to open was Eversfield Throat and Ear Dispensary in 1882, which eventually became Eversfield Chest Hospital on West Hill Road in 1948. It provided specialist treatment for chest disease and tuberculosis patients until it closed in 1980.

In 1884, the Buchanan Opthalmic and Cottage Hospital opened with 17 beds on Springfield Road. In 1890 it became the Buchanan Homeopathic Hospital, and by 1901 the wards housed 215 patients and 4,700 outpatients were treated in a year. In the early days, there were charges – varying from 5 shillings to £1 a week, but the fee was waived for patients who couldn’t afford to pay. Children from London were sent to the Buchanan to recover from illness, where they were placed in wards newly decorated with the latest glazed tiles complete with pictures of nursery rhyme characters – quite a novelty in those days. The Buchanan remained open until 1997, when patients were transferred to the new Conquest Hospital. Part of the maternity building was saved from demolition in 2004 and remains on Springfield Road.

At the start of 2008, we are left with one local hospital: the Conquest, with 510 beds. It opened in 1992 after closures of the Eversfield and Royal East Sussex, with the closures of St Helens and the Buchanan imminent. Two of the hospital’s units are currently under threat of closure: the maternity unit, which accommodates the births of more than 1,800 babies a year, and the A&E department. If you have something to say about it, you might be interested to check-out www.handsofftheconquest.org.uk