Medical dates:

Medical character:

The Dockwell Isolation Hospital was opened in the 1890s by the Heston & Isleworth Urban District Council.  

Following a scandal in 1895 about conditions in the Hospital, the Richmond (Surrey) and Heston & Isleworth Urban District Joint Isolation Hospital Committee decided to build a new isolation hospital in Mogden Lane in Isleworth.

The new Mogden Isolation Hospital opened in 1898, but the Dockwell Isolation Hospital was retained for the treatment of smallpox cases.  During smallpox epidemics, staff would be seconded there from Mogden.  Otherwise the Hospital remained empty for years at a time.

After the turn of the century smallpox epidemics became rare, and the Joint Isolation Hospital Committee had to decide the future of the Hospital.  In 1921 the buildings adjacent to the Administration Block were sold by auction and, in 1926, Richmond Council made an agreement with the Surrey Smallpox Hospital Committee for its smallpox patients to be admitted to the Surrey Smallpox Hospital in Clandon, near Guildford.

In 1928 the Hospital was reopened for the admission of ten patients with smallpox and, in 1930, for patients with diphtheria.

It closed in 1935.

Present status (May 2009)

No trace remains of the Hospital.  Dockwell Lane was erased by the construction of the Heathrow extension of the Piccadilly Line.  The site now contains mostly British Airways buildings, part of the industrial hinterland of Heathrow Airport.