Belmont Hospital
1 Homeland Drive, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5LY
Medical dates:
Medical character:
1940 - 1975
Mental (neurosis)
The buildings of Belmont Hospital were originally an
orphanage, established in 1853 on Brighton Road, Sutton. Then
known as the South Metropolitan District Schools, they provided
industrial training for 1500 poor children from Greenwich, Camberwell
and Woolwich.
In 1882 the Schools acquired a site on Banstead Road (later renamed
Cotswold Road) from the Sutton Lodge estate and a separate girls'
school was established there. It comprised six blocks, each with
accommodation for 100 girls (these later became the Downs Hospital and some still survive today as
part of the Sutton Hospital).
In 1902 the Schools closed and, in 1908, the buildings became the
Belmont Workhouse. Conditions were so harsh in the workhouse
that, in 1910, 300 inmates rioted.
During WW1 the workhouse was used as a hospital for German prisoners of
war, with 92 beds for officers, 1,175 for other ranks. It was also an
internment camp with 90 beds for civilian enemy aliens awaiting
repatriation.
After the war, in 1922, the buildings reverted to being a workhouse for
unemployed
men and was renamed the London Industrial Colony. Conditions
remained very poor - the buildings were said to be filthy and
rat-infested.
In 1930 the Industrial Colony was taken over by the LCC and became a
training centre for the unemployed.
During WW2 it became the Sutton Emergency Hospital. It had been
feared that there would be mass hysteria at the beginning of the war,
so it was designated a neurosis unit - the Sutton Neurosis Centre.
However, the fears proved unfounded and the Hospital was used to
treat trauma patients and war casualties. Over the war years the
distinctive buildings, being quite noticeable from the air, sustained
bomb damage.
In 1946 it was renamed the Belmont Hospital, specialising in
psychiatric medicine.
It remained an Emergency Hospital until July 1948, when it
joined the NHS under the control of the St Helier
Group Hospital Management Committee, part of the South West
Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board, as a treatment
centre for general psychiatric conditions.
By the 1960s the Hospital, with 313 beds, had become the leading centre
for the study and treatment of neuroses.
In 1965 the weekly cost of an in-patient was £29 16s 8d
(£29.83), which decreased to £27 11s 8d (£27.58) in
1966. The Hospital had 412 beds, of which 325 were staffed.
In 1969 the South West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board decided to
replace the Hospital buildings as part of their long-term plans for
psychiatric services.
In 1970 the weekly cost of an in-patient was £41.16, increasing to £50.22 the following year.
Services were transferred to the Sutton Hospital nearby in 1975. Its name lives on as the Belmont Postgraduate Psychiatric Centre in the Chiltern Wing of the Sutton Hospital.
|
Present status
(August 2008) |
|---|
Belmont House
The original entry to Homeland Drive
Apartment blocks in Dorset Road
Signage on Belmont House
Sutton Ambulance Station in Dorset Road
New housing on the south part of the fomer Hospital site
In 1864-5 the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Company had built the Sutton to Epsom Downs line. The bridge, which carried Homeland Drive over the railway tracks, was rebuilt in 1984. The plaque on the bridge mentions the Belmont Hospital.
Nothing to do with the Belmont Hospital, this 18th century listed building in Brighton Road, once also part of the Sutton Lodge estate, was bought by Sutton Council in 1965 and opened as a Day Centre for the elderly in 1966.
References
(Author unstated) 1917 List of the various hospital treating military cases in the United Kingdom. London, H.M.S.O.