This feature by Robert Brown first appeared in the Gazette on June 4, 2004.

FINDING something that has been lost for 14 years can be a moment of joy, but discovering a strip of negatives of a local building that was demolished in 1993 is a matter of luck, especially when the photographer is looking for some other subject that he photographed in the past.

That building was the old Cottage Hospital that once stood on the corner of Hackwood Road and Southern Road in Basingstoke.

Endowed by the will of Edmund Portsmouth, it was built at a cost of £2,000 and opened in 1879.

From the very beginning it relied on voluntary contributions and money raised by subscriptions from the inhabitants of Basingstoke and district, including various dignitaries such as John May, of the local brewery, who was known as the Basingstoke benefactor.

The hospital began with eight beds and the average intake of patients per year was 43, who were looked after by one nurse and several assistants.

By 1890 five more beds had been added, and in 1896 an extension was built with funds from John May, which was called the May Wing.

Further wards were added over the years, due to the increase in the town’s population, which, by 1901, was 9,793 – an increase of some 3,000 since the hospital had been built.

The growth of the town, caused by the construction of Thornycroft’s factory in Worting Road and the nearby housing estate (George Street, Queens Road, etc, area) led to the building of the Isolation Hospital in Kingsclere Road – consisting of three blocks of rooms that were suitable for 42 patients – in 1900.

Meanwhile, another hospital had been built in Basing Road in 1898, next to the old workhouse.

It took several years for local people to go to this other establishment as they thought that it was part of the workhouse, where, in the past, paupers were sent to work and live in squalid conditions. The Basing Road hospital was for the chronically sick.

The Cottage Hospital was to face its first large scale epidemic in 1905, when the local water supply was contaminated by sewerage in Reading Road and brought about 168 cases of typhoid in the town.

The last report of sickness was in December that year, but it was announced that 15 people, including several children, had died.

In 1919, the Cottage Hospital was enlarged at a cost of £1,500. This allowed 27 beds to be fitted into the building and, during the year, relief was given to 340 patients, although some of these were wounded men from the First World War.

In 1921, an X-ray department was opened, while an ophthalmic section was introduced to increase services for the public. By 1925, a children’s ward was built to ease the pressure of the nurses trying to cope with the increase of adults arriving in the hospital.

By 1935 there were 28 beds and six cots available.

It was in 1935 that it was realised that continual housing development in the town, such as at South Ham and Kingsclere Road, would mean a larger hospital was needed.

A committee was formed to plan annual carnivals to gain funds for the construction of a new and more modern building.

Three carnivals were held, in 1937, 1938 and 1939, which raised money towards building the hospital on a site at Erdesley, in Cliddesden Road.

However, the outbreak of the Second World War in September of 1939 meant that the plans had to be put to one side.

In the following year, the Germans bombed Basingstoke and three bombs fell in Church Square killing 12 people.

Other attacks caused death and destruction, resulting in the hospital being kept busy with patients.

When the war ended in 1945, the funds raised by the carnivals and other means had risen to £23,000, and this amount was put toward the building of an outpatients department which opened next to the Cottage Hospital, in Southern Road, in 1955.

In 1947, the Shrubbery house, Cliddesden Road, having been sold to Basingstoke District Council by Mrs Burberry, was converted into a maternity home, with 16 beds.

By 1966 the Cottage Hospital had 40 beds, while other hospitals in the area, such as Basing Road, Park Prewett, Rooksdown, Sherborne Road, and nearby villages and towns, had other beds for emergencies.

Then, in 1969, the opening of the “mini” hospital along the Aldermaston Road, designed to look after the increased population of the Town Development Scheme, brought about the closure of the Cottage Hospital.

After a short while it was reopened for therapy and community care in psychiatric treatment.

In the meantime, the main block of Basingstoke and District Hospital, next to the “mini” hospital, had been completed and opened in 1974.

The old Cottage Hospital continued to be used for special departments for some years, but in 1993 it became empty and derelict, so the building was demolished for new development.

The Shrubbery home closed down in 1974. Used by the Horseshoe Theatre Company for several years, it was damaged by fire in 1989, and finally demolished in 1992.

Basing Road Hospital was demolished in September 1977, and the site was used to build the present Hampshire Clinic.

The photographs that were taken of the Cottage Hospital in 1990 are a unique record of a building that served the public for more than 100 years.

For the local folk it will remain in their memories for the rest of their life