Medical dates:

Medical character:

When the Kent/108 Voluntary Aid Detachment was mobilized on 14th October 1914, it quickly set up a hospital with 30 beds in the Village Hall in Orpington.  The first patients to be received were wounded Belgian soldiers.

The Hospital closed in March 1919.  During its operational lifetime some 1,489 patients had received treatment; not one had died.

In 1919 the Commandant and Lady Superintendent, Mrs Catherine Maud King Tennyson-Smith, was awarded the Royal Red Cross in recognition of her nursing services.

Present status (February 2012)

The Village Hall, built in 1890, contained a concert hall which could seat an audience of 350, as well as various small meeting rooms and a kitchen.  In 1962 it was severely damaged by fire and had to be demolished.  Its site was sold and Templegate House, an office block, was built in its place.

A new Village Hall was eventually built in 1982 at the opposite end of the High Street.  This building in its turn was replaced in 2010.