Nottingham Women's Hospital

Nottingham Women's Hospital, colloquially known as "Peel Street" to residents of Nottinghamshire, was a specialist maternity hospital for women which closed in November 1981. The last baby to be born at the hospital was Louise Michelle Baker, on November 15th 1981.^[1] Records of the hospital have been deposited at Manuscripts and Special Collections, The University of Nottingham.^[2] Medical Services were transferred to Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham.

The hospital was inaugurated as a result of a merger between Nottingham Castle Gate Hospital and Samaritan Hospital Nottingham, both also in Nottingham. It was viewed at the time that maintaining two separate hospitals was duplicating work, and therefore unnecessary. The new hospital operational in 1923, and then officially opened on 5 November 1929. Patients began to enter in 1930.^[3]

The hospital site had replaced a Victorian mansion called Southfield House and after the hospital closed the site was partly cleared. The main building was converted into flats, now called Charleston House, in 1982. In June 2011 another building on the site was refurbished, extended and occupied by J D Wetherspoon. The licensed premises is called The Gooseberry Bush after the place where the babies were said to arrive.^[3] The pub opened on 12 Jul 2011.^[4]

References

1. ↑ Nottinghamshire Archives Ref No DD/2208/1/8 Photograph of the hospital administrator Alan Wallis with Louise Michelle Baker, the last baby to be delivered in the Women's Hospital
2. ↑ Records of Nottingham General Hospital, held at Manuscripts and Special Collections, The University of Nottingham
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 YouTube video of plaque on site of hospital Accessed 25 July 2013
4. ↑ J D Wetherspoon page about The Gooseberry Bush Accessed 25 July 2013

External links

• Hospital Records, National Archives
• Nottingham Women's Hospital on Peel Street, Nottingham Hospital History