LOST HOSPITALS OF LONDON

 Mascalls Park Hospital
Mascalls Lane, Brentwood, Essex CM14 5HQ
Medical dates:

Medical character:
2001 - 2011

Mental
When Warley Hospital closed in June 2001, the Admissions Unit and Woodside Villa remained open as a medium secure mental health unit.  It was renamed Mascalls Park Hospital to avoid confusion with the closed segment of the main Warley Hospital.

The Admissions Unit had been built in 1936 as an extension of the main Hospital on a 9-acre site to the south.  It had an administration block flanked by male and female wards and was used mainly for new admissions and acute patients.  Woodside Villa had been added in 1937 as a male convalescent ward.  It had been intended to build an equivalent female convalescent ward, but WW2 intervened and the plan was never carried out.

During WW2 the Admissions Unit and Woodside Villa became the Warley Woods Hospital, an emergency war hospital with 230 beds managed and staffed by the London Hospital as part of the Emergency Medical Service.

In June 1945 Warley Woods Hospital was decommissioned and returned to the control of Brentwood Mental Hospital (later renamed Warley Hospital). The buildings reverted to their original use.

In 1951 a block for use as a Staff Sick Bay was built behind the central administration building at a cost of almost £10,000.  It had 12 beds.

In 2000 temporary prefabicated extensions were added to the Admissions Unit.

In 2001 the site became Mascalls Park Hospital, managed by the North East London Mental Health NHS Trust.  It provided in-patient and out-patient care for adults and older people with serious and enduring mental health problems, such as severe depression, bipolar disorder, acute anxiety, schizophrenia and dementia.

The Hospital closed early in 2011, when services moved to Sunflowers Court, a new £23m facility at Goodmayes Hospital in Ilford.


Present status (August 2011)

In 2009 the North East London NHS Foundation Trust instructed Drivers Jonas to sell the site.

Update:  October 2012

The site was sold in 2012 to Bellway Homes, who intend to redevelop it as a housing estate.

The Hospital buildings will be demolished.  Six 6-bedroom and twenty 5-bedroom detached houses and two blocks containing 14 affordable apartments (six 1-bedroom and eight 2-bedroom) will be built in their place. 

The Lodge will be refurbished as a residence and the water tower retained as a historic feature.

 Warley Hospital
The Lodge on Mascalls Lane by the entrance drive.

Warley Hospital
The entrance drive off Mascalls Lane into the former Hospital.

Warley Hospital  Warley Hospital
Various buildings on the site, all to be demolished.

   Warley Hospital
The presence of quicksand in the subsoil caused much trouble during the building of the water tower.
  
  Warley Hospital
A site map for Mascalls Park Hospital, Warley Hospital.
References
http://moderngov.barking-dagenham.gov.uk
www.brentwoodweeklynews.co.uk
www.nelft.nhs.uk
www.romfordrecorder.co.uk (1)
www.romfordrecorder.co.uk (2)
www.thisistotalessex.co.uk
(1)
www.thisistotalessex.co.uk (2)
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