Medical dates:

Medical character:

In 1894 a piece of land in Bounds Green Road was purchased for a new hospital from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for £300.  The businessman and philanthropist John Passmore Edwards (1823-1911) laid the foundation stone.

The Passmore Edwards Cottage Hospital was officially opened in 1895 by Mrs Passmore Edwards.  It had been built almost entirely with the financial support of the Passmore Edwards Foundation at the cost of £2,000.  It was designed as a small brick, tile-hung building and contained 8 beds.  The medical staff consisted of 12 local GPs, one consulting surgeon and one dentist.

In 1904 the Hospital was enlarged to 28 beds.  In 1905 it had 30 beds.  A consulting physician was added to the staff.

A substantial extension was built in 1922, when the Hospital had 52 beds, including 6 rooms for private patients.  In 1924 an X-ray Department was added.  In 1929 the Hospital purchased 131.91 milligrams of radium for £2,000 for use by its staff and also to be loaned out to other doctors at an agreed charge.  (This arrangement lasted over 25 years, but demand lessened and the radium was finally disposed of in 1954 to the Radiochemical Centre at Amersham.)

The Hospital was renamed in 1933 as the Wood Green and Southgate Hospital in order to indicate the areas it served.  Plans for the rebuilding of the Hospital at an estimated cost of £50,000 had been completed in 1939, but the outbreak of WW2 forced the project to be abandoned.

In 1948 the Hospital joined the NHS, coming under the administrative control of the Northern Group Hospital Management Committee, part of the North West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board.

In 1963, when the Archway and Northern Groups fused to become the North London Group, the Hospital was transferred to the control of the Barnet Group Hospital Management Committee.

The Hospital was modernised in 1973, when it had 45 beds.

It closed in 1983. 

Present status (January 2008)

The site now contains Passmore Edwards House, a 3-storey block of 36 one-bedroom apartments for sheltered housing.