Norfolk and Norwich Hospital

Norfolk and Norwich Hospital

The Norfolk and Norwich Hospital stood on a site in St Stephen's Road, Norwich, Norfolk, England. Founded in 1771, it closed in 2003 after its services had been transferred to the new Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. Many of the buildings were then demolished and replaced by housing.

History

The Norfolk and Norwich Hospital was founded in 1771 as a charitable institution for the care of "the poor and the sick" and was established by William Fellowes and Benjamin Gooch. The Norfolk and Norwich Eye Infirmary was founded in 1822 by physicians Lewis Evans and Robert Hull and the surgeon, Thomas Martineau.

In 1871 the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, often referred to colloquially as the "N&N", celebrated its centenary. The hospital became a training centre for nurses in 1875, and was expanded in 1883 when a new main hospital building opened on St Stephen's Road with 220 beds.

During the First World War the Norfolk and Norwich cared for 7,880 servicemen and in February 1915 a new ward, the Eastern Daily Press (EDP) ward, was opened for 60 soldiers. The cost of £2,600 had been raised by the local newspaper. The EDP ward was demolished in 1930 to make way for a new Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat department.

The Second World War saw the hospital bombed on a number of occasions, including in April 1942, during the German Baedeker raids, and the site was severely damaged by bombing on June 26/27th. As a result of the June 1942 raid, 120 beds were put out of commission, 80 nurses and maids were made homeless and the main operating theatres were destroyed.

In 1948 the National Health Service was founded and the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital became an NHS hospital. In 1949, the Norwich, Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth Hospital Management Committee described Norwich's new NHS hospitals as the United Norwich Hospitals (UNH). The UNH were:

• Norfolk and Norwich Hospital
• Norfolk and Norwich Eye Infirmary
• Jenny Lind Infirmary for Sick Children [2]
• Norwich Isolation Hospital
• West Norwich Hospital

Major expansion took place at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in the late 1960s with the construction of a ten-storey maternity block, opened by the Queen Mother [3] in 1968. A new main ward block, diagnostic and treatment area, and a teaching centre were all built in the 1970s.

Closure and demolition

In late 2001 most of the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Trust's services had left the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital for the new university hospital on the Norwich Research Park [4] with the last departments vacating the site in January 2003.

In October 2002 a thanksgiving service was held at Norwich Cathedral to mark the contribution he Norfolk and Norwich Hospital and its staff had made over the centuries. Around 800 staff, patients and visitors attended the service of thanksgiving for the old hospital.%5C26.pdf]

The Department of Health sold the old site to developer Persimmon Homes and the site was redeveloped as Fellowes Plain. The medical tradition is commemorated in the Fellowes Plain street names, which are named after notable Norfolk and Norwich Hospital figures:

• Sarah West Close - after the hospital's first matron
• Thomas Wyatt Close - an architect of the 1883 building
• Edward Jodrell Plain - a major benefactor
• Benjamin Gooch Way - surgeon and hospital founder
• Phillipa Flowerday Plain - first known industrial nurse
• Kenneth McKee Plain - surgeon famed for hip replacements

The St Stephen's Gate Medical Practice [5], Wessex Street, is also located on the former Norfolk and Norwich Hospital site.

External links

• Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust website