King's Tower built on the site of the old Queens Hospital
In 1866 the Croydon Union workhouse moved from Duppas Hill Road to new premises built on a 4.5 acre site in Queen's Road. The land and the construction work had cost £40,000.
The 3-storey building was Georgian in design, built of yellow Suffolk brick with a slate roof. Its frontage, slightly set back from Queen's Road, was 45 metres long. Square in shape and almost 13 metres in height, the workhouse had a 25-metre high Italianate tower above the main entrance hall. The central section, containing the administrative offices, was flanked either side by 3-storey, 14 bay wings (6 of which were set behind a ground floor colonnade).
The building was E-shaped, with narrow spurs (17.5 metres long) at either end of the wings projecting to the rear of the site. The dining hall and chapel were located behind the main entrance, completing the central bar of the 'E' shape. Workshops were located in
outbuildings at the rear, running parallel to the main building.
The wings and spurs contained the day wards, with dormitories above for the able-bodied inmates. The workhouse could accommodate 350 inmates. As usual, the sexes were segregated - men to the left of the tower and women to the right.
The site also contained a Receiving Ward and a residence for the Master of the workhouse.
In 1879 two isolation hospitals, one for fever and one for smallpox patients, were built to the east of the main building (the smallpox hospital was later demolished).
In 1885 a separate workhouse infirmary was built in Mayday Road (this later became theMayday Hospital). Three pairs of cottage homes for the children of paupers were built near the infirmary in 1897 (they have since been demolished) and two more pairs and a home for babies in 1905, in Pawsons Road opposite the fever hospital.
Following the Local Government Act, 1929, the Boards of Guardians were abolished and, in 1930, the workhouse was taken over Croydon Borough Council, who renamed it Queen's Road Homes.
The building continued in use as a home for the destitute. Workhouse conditions prevailed until WW2, when the Homes became a Class 2 hospital under the Emergency Medical Scheme.
In April 1941 the main part of the building was severely damaged by a land mine. The northern wing and the chapel were completely destroyed. Later, part of the southern wing was damaged by a high explosive bomb.
In 1948 the institution joined the NHS under the control of the Croydon Group Hospital Management Committee, part of the South West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board. It was renamed Queen's Hospital, caring for geriatric patients.
In 1954 the Hospital had 450 beds. The chapel was rebuilt in 1957.
By the end of the 1950s the Hospital consisted of five 'wings' or blocks containing 434 beds. Block 4 was the 'residential' part of the original workhouse built in 1865, and had no lifts.
The years from 1961 to 1966 saw the first phase of the Hospital's upgrading, at a cost of £15,000 (the second phase was scheduled to begin in 1970 or 1971). A new boiler house and a Day Hospital were built, as was a single-storey hut to house the Out-Patients Department (which measured 10 ft (3 metres) by 12 ft (4 metres), a Physiotherapy Department (23 ft (7 metres) by 70 ft (21 metres), including storage space for wheelchairs) and an Occupational Therapy Department (23 ft (7 metres) by 30 ft (9 metres). The hut also contained a staff room the same size as the Out-Patients Department, for use by the entire Hospital. Bensham Lodge, an old people's home for 80 residents, was built on part of the site.
In 1962 the Hospital had 410 beds and, in 1966, 397. A staff hostel was built near the tower in 1968.
In 1969, after a number of organisations had called for the modernisation of the Hospital, it was proposed to build an air-conditioned 5-storey tower block on the site of Block 5. The Hospital would then have 600 beds. Although the Department of Health considered allocating funding for the project, the finances faltered and the plan never materialised.
In 1975 a row of four staff houses were erected adjacent to the first staff hostel and, in 1981, a second staff hostel, known as Queen's House, was built.
The second phase of the Hospital upgrade never took place and it closed in 1987, with 173 beds.
FTF Honours go to MuzzaDazzler, Well Done