Wednesday, September 28, 2022

A Market Harborough mystery: the infectious diseases hospital


Have a look at this map of the area around Market Harborough railway station. It's a detail from the six-inch Ordnance Survey series published between 1888 and 1913.

East of the station, on Rockingham Road, you see the legend Hospital, with Infectious Diseases below it in italics.

This appears to relate to a square building on the north bank of the Welland, which I calculate to stand where Weddel Swift's plant is on the Riverside Industrial Estate is today.

I have never seen any reference to the opening or operation of this hospital. But an advertisement in The Hospital from 1915 by Humphreys Ltd lists Market Harborough as one of the places they have supplied with one of their iron hospitals. See the blog Historic Hospitals for more details.

But did it ever open? According to the map there was no road or path to it.

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