Medical dates:

Medical character:

In October 1914 Mr Thomas Charles Dewey, a successful businessman and local politician, allowed the music pavilion in the grounds of his home, South Hill Wood House, to be used as an auxiliary hospital.

The South Hill Wood Auxiliary Hospital was an annexe to the Masonic Hall V.A.D. Hospital.  It had 12 beds in two wards.  Its first patients were wounded Belgian servicemen, followed later by the British.

The Hospital presumably closed in 1918.


Present status (November 2010)

The music pavilion, located by Westmoreland Road, was almost completely destroyed by a V1 rocket during WW2.  It was rebuilt in 1954 as a bowls pavilion when the gardens of South Hill Wood House became a public park.  The surviving 1902 neo-Georgian facade and Dutch gable roof were incorporated into the new building.

However, the pavilion, built on shallow foundations on London clay, subsided and became unsafe.  The cost of underpinning and repairing the damaged building - some £200,000 - proved prohibitive.  It was demolished around 2006.