Dover: Lock and Key of the Kingdom

The Royal Victoria Hospital was instituted in 1849 as an act of  thanksgiving by the town for having escaped the cholera epidemic, which had claimed many lives in the 1840s. There had been a  dispensary in the town since 1823 and it was decided to combine  this with the new hospital. £1,760 was raised by public  subscription and a property on the High Street known as Brook  House was purchased and, after some alteration was opened on  1st May 1851. The new site adjoined land known as Wood’s Meadow and in 1858  this was purchased for the hospital so that it was not hemmed in  by development and had room to expand. Additions were made to  the building in 1860 and in the 1870s, with an annexe built in  1887 for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. In 1897 one of the  women’s wards was named ‘Victoria’ in honour of the Queen’s  Diamond Jubilee. In 1901 Edward VII gave permission for the  hospital to be called Royal Victoria after his mother.  In 1927 a  Centenary Fund was started and with the money raised another  new wing was built in 1933.   At the outbreak of the Second World War the patients were  evacuated to Waldershare Park Mansion and the hospital still dealt  with casualties. With the formation of the National Health Service Buckland  Hospital gradually took over more and more eventually leaving  just a Stroke Unit and Geriatric Day Hospital. The hospital finally  closed its doors in May 1987 and spent a number of years  mouldering away until converted into low cost apartments in the  1990s.