Coney Hill Auxiliary Hospital
Croydon Road, West Wickham, Kent BR2 7AG
Medical dates:
Medical character:
Convalescent (military)
The Coney Hill Auxiliary
Hospital opened in October 1914 in a house made available by Mrs H.G.
Hoskier, whose husband was the Honorary Commandant of the Kent/33
(Bromley) Voluntary Aid Detachment.
Coney Hill, a large mansion built in 1880, was one of three private houses in the area offered to the British Red Cross Society for use as a hospital (the others were The Warren and Hayes Grove).
The Hospital had 7 beds. The Red Cross provided beds and beddings, equipment and medical supplies, and paid for the food, heating and lighting. It received a War Office capitation grant of 3 shillings (15p) per occupied bed per night.
The first patients to arrive on 17th October 1914 were sick and wounded Belgian soldiers suffering mainly from rheumatism or leg wounds.
The Hospital closed in May 1916, at the same time that The Warren closed.
Coney Hill, a large mansion built in 1880, was one of three private houses in the area offered to the British Red Cross Society for use as a hospital (the others were The Warren and Hayes Grove).
The Hospital had 7 beds. The Red Cross provided beds and beddings, equipment and medical supplies, and paid for the food, heating and lighting. It received a War Office capitation grant of 3 shillings (15p) per occupied bed per night.
The first patients to arrive on 17th October 1914 were sick and wounded Belgian soldiers suffering mainly from rheumatism or leg wounds.
The Hospital closed in May 1916, at the same time that The Warren closed.
Present status (December 2010)
The mansion house has been demolished. The site became Coney Hill School for handicapped children, which closed in August 2005. It was taken over by the Christian charity Livability and is now Nash College, a specialist residential school providing further education for young adults with learning disability.
The original lodge remains.
The lodge to Coney Hill, now part of Nash College.
The driveway on the right leads to Nash College.
Creswick P, Pond GS and Ashton PH 1915 Kent's Care for the Wounded. London, Hodder & Stoughton.
Walker J 1979 The British Red Cross in the Bromley area 1910-1919. Bromley Local History 4, 17-23.
Walker JE (undated) An account of the British Red Cross Society in West Wickham, Kent 1870-1970. Unpublished document filed at the Archives Department, British Red Cross Society, Moorgate.
www.kentvad.org
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