LOST HOSPITALS OF LONDON

St Marylebone Hospital for Psychiatry and Child Guidance
48 Cosway Street, Marylebone,  NW1
Medical dates:

Medical character:
1951 - 1962

Mental
By 1951 the psychiatric patients had become so numerous at the West End Hospital for Nervous Diseases that all such work was moved to the old St Marylebone and Western General Dispensary at 48 Cosway Street.  This became the St Marylebone Hospital for Psychiatric and Child Guidance.  Eventually treatment was offered for adults too, including individual therapy along analytical lines, hypnosis and group therapy.

The Hospital established an Art Therapy Department, the only hospital in the UK to provide art therapy for out-patients.  Painting, drawing, modelling and carving were offered, with an art teacher working in conjunction with the psychiatrists.

The building lay in the path of a projected road and the Hospital had to close in 1962.  Services were transferred to the Paddington Clinic and Day Hospital.  Thus the psychiatric department of the West End Hospital lost its own identity and became part of a larger unit.  


Present status (November 2008)

The buildings at the west corner of Cosway Street were demolished in 1964, when work began on the Harrow Road flyover approach as part of the Westway scheme.  

Hunstanton House, one of the blocks on the City of Westminster Council-owned Sheringham Estate, was built on what remained of the Hospital site.
Cosway Street
Looking south along Cosway Street towards Marylebone Road



Hunstanton House
Hunstanton House on Cosway Street
Church Army HQ
The Hospital would have faced the headquarters of the Church Army on the opposite side of Cosway Street.

Hunstation House
The northern elevation of Hunstanton House
References
Bennet EA (date unknown) West End Hospital for Nervous Diseases. (Chapter 38 of an unpublished undated manuscript located at the Wellcome Library).
Hogan S 2001 Healing Arts: The Hospital of Art Therapy. London, Jessica Kingsley.
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