Building    To 1981

St Benedict's Hospital

Categories: Medicine

Hill House, built in 1802, was the manor house on this site. It was bought by St Joseph's Teaching Brotherhood and they built a Roman Catholic school, St Joseph's Roman Catholic College, in 1887. This moved to Beulah Hill in 1895 and in 1897 the site was taken over by the Wandsworth Board of Guardians to provide extra workhouse accommodation.The College building was enlarged and renamed the Tooting Home for the Aged and Infirm. Hill House became the Nurses' Home. 1903 more patient accommodation was added.

WW1 the Home became the Church Lane Military Hospital (also known as the Tooting Military Hospital) and it was used as a neurological hospital for shell-shocked and neurasthenic ex-servicemen until 1923. It was then empty until 1931 when the LCC reopened it as St Benedict's Hospital for long-stay patients. 1948 it joined the NHS. More patient accommodation was built in 1951.It closed in 1981 and housing now (2016) occupies the site.

All this information from the always excellent Lost Hospitals of London. This 1895 map shows the site with Hill House and the RC College in place.

Our picture source, History of St Benedicts, has other good photos as does Workhouses.

Footnote: Daniel Defoe is said to have lived in Hill House but the authoritative History of Tooting-Graveney: Surrey, 1897, by W. E. Morden is certain that Defoe could never have lived in a house on this site since Hill House was built, 1802, "in the comer of a field under cultivation", after Defoe's death, 1731.

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This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
St Benedict's Hospital

Commemorated ati

St Benedict's Hospital - piers

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St Benedict's Hospital - turret + portico

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Sir Hans Sloane

Sir Hans Sloane

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Victims of the 1848-9 Lambeth cholera outbreak

Victims of the 1848-9 Lambeth cholera outbreak

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Group, Medicine, Tragedy

1 memorial
Homoeopathic doctors and colleagues

Homoeopathic doctors and colleagues

16 died in the Trident air crash.

Group, Medicine, Tragedy

1 memorial
Eastern Fever Hospital

Eastern Fever Hospital

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Building, Medicine

1 memorial
John Nicoll

John Nicoll

Treasurer associated with St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1702.

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1 memorial

Previously viewed

Edward Gale

Edward Gale

Co-church warden of St Sepulchre Middlesex in 1868.

Person, Politics & Administration

1 memorial
John Light

John Light

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Person, Tragedy

1 memorial
William Reed

William Reed

Role on the lost expedition: Royal marine on SS Erebus. See John Franklin.

Person, Exploring, Tragedy

1 memorial
Stratford Depot

Stratford Depot

A Motive Power Depot (MPD) used for the storage of train engines when not in use.

Place, Engineering, Transport

1 memorial
Bunny Wailer / Bunny Livingston

Bunny Wailer / Bunny Livingston

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Person, Music / songs, Caribbean Islands

1 memorial