Large two-storey detached house
Stretford Memorial Hospital in 2015
Wikimedia Commons

Stretford Memorial Hospital was built as a private residence known as Basford House for Henry Beecroft Jackson, a retired cotton shipping merchant.[1] Completed in about 1850 in the Italianate style, it was lent by its then owner, James Nuttall, to the British Red Cross for use as an auxiliary hospital during the First World War.[2] A local trust administered by the Red Cross acquired the building in 1925, and it was adapted to become a maternity hospital, as part of the Local War Memorial Scheme.[3]

Stretford Memorial joined the National Health Service (NHS) as an acute hospital in 1948, the year of the NHS’s foundation,[4][5] and closed in 1983. It was reopened as a geriatric hospital in 1985, and became part of Trafford Healthcare NHS Trust in 1996.[3] The hospital was closed in 2015, and its services transferred to Trafford General HospitalGenerally considered to be the UK's first National Health Service hospital, and the first in the world to offer free healthcare to all.. As at 2021 the building remains vacant and subject to vandalism, but plans have been put forward to its owner, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, for its restoration, so that it can once again provide healthcare services to the local community, as required by the terms of the property’s freehold agreements.[1][6]

References



Bibliography


Hartwell, Clare, et al. Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East. Yale University Press, 2004.
Richardson, Alice. “£2.8m Plans to Transform Derelict Former Hospital.” Manchester Evening News, 20 May 2021, https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/28m-plans-transform-derelict-former-20642756.
The National Archives. Stretford Memorial Hospital, Manchester. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/hospitalrecords/details.asp?id=1996&page=62.
University of Manchester Library. Stretford Memorial Hospital. https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb133-mmc3-16/mmc/9/26.
Whitear, Sam. £2.8M Restoration Scheme for Former Hospital Unveiled. 21 May 2021, https://businessmanchester.co.uk/2021/05/21/2-8m-restoration-scheme-for-former-hospital-unveiled/.