Royal Naval Hospital
The Royal Naval Hospital is a hospital of early 20th century origin at Castle Road, near Castletown. Built to serve the Royal Navy, the hospital opened in 1904 and succeeded an earlier one within the dockyard of Portland Harbour. In 1957, the hospital site was handed over to the National Health Service, who continue to run it as the Portland Community Hospital.
In recent years, both the surviving hospital building and the Gatehouse Surgery have been designated Important Local Buildings. The former is considered as being part of a "prominent group of Edwardian naval buildings" (alongside the three former Admiralty residences at Castle Road), while also retaining "an important link with the Royal Navy's former presence". In 2019, Portland Town Council added the World War II underground features to their list of local heritage assets.
History
Original medical facilities at Portland
In the mid-19th century, Portland Roads was transformed into a harbour of refuge with the building of two breakwater arms between 1849-72. In addition to the construction of the breakwaters and coaling facilities for the Royal Navy's fleet of steam-powered warships, other naval facilities were established, including a general naval hospital within the dockyard in the late 1860s. The Admiralty did not originally intend to establish any medical facilities at Portland, but to transport any sick and injured naval personnel to the RN Hospital at Haslar. At the end of 1866, with the breakwater works virtually completed, the Admiralty decided to survey some of the soon-to-be vacant buildings at Portland Nore, which were used in connection with the works, to ascertain if any would be suitable for conversion into sick quarters. A hospital was subsequently established within two of the buildings. They were purchased by the Admiralty from the contractor Mr. John Leather for a cost of £5,185 in March 1867 and subsequently converted to provide two wards and other associated facilities.
As the hospital was only a small facility, plans were soon made for the construction of a larger hospital. During his inspection of the existing hospital in 1872, Sir Alexander Armstrong, the Director-General of the Medical Department of the Navy, suggested that land to the east of Castle Road would prove an "admirable" site for a new facility. Although plans were then developed by the Director of Works, the required expenditure to build it was not approved. Instead the Admiralty looked at the lower cost option of potentially transforming Portland Castle into a hospital, however the owners, the War Department, felt the site was unsuitable, leaving the Admiralty to drop plans for a new hospital. Instead, in 1872-74, a large building at Portland Nore was converted using convict labour to provide additional hospital accommodation, and an attached dead house built.
In c. 1890, the dockyard hospital was recorded as holding 76 beds within two blocks, which included an officers' ward and infectious diseases department. Meanwhile, throughout the 1870s and beyond, Portland Harbour's use by the Royal Navy continued to increase, resulting in the need for larger and improved facilities to serve the Fleet. New sick quarters were established off Castle Road during the 1880s. In 1899-1900, an infectious diseases hospital was built on the east side of the Merchant's Incline by Messrs. W. Hill and Company of Gosport for an estimated £12,200.
Construction and early use of the Royal Naval General Hospital at Castle Road
As greater facilities were required than could be provided by the hospital in the dockyard, a Royal Naval General Hospital to be built at Castle Road was approved in the Naval Estimates for 1900-01. The hospital was designed in 1901 and built by Messrs Wakeham Bros of Plymouth in 1901-04. In its original guise, the hospital, which opened in 1904, was made up of five primary buildings connected by a covered way: the medical block, surgical block, kitchen, administrative block and officers' block. The various buildings of the Sick Quarters below the new site were soon incorporated into the General Hospital site, while the original hospital building in the dockyard became torpedo workshops.
During World War I, the hospital provided medical attention to casualties of the Grand Fleet from Scapa Flow. To provide access by rail, a private halt, known as the Portland Hospital Halt, was established. By the 1930s, the hospital saw a decreasing amount of use by the navy and the Admiralty began considering its future, but despite this it remained operational.
Use during the Second World War
With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, and the fall of France the following year, the presence of Portland's naval base saw the island become a major target for the Luftwaffe, who carried out 48 attacks there over the course of the war. As part of pre-war plans for Portland's passive defence scheme, an underground refuge for staff and patients was approved in 1938. The original design had two approach tunnels linking to the main refuge tunnel behind the main hospital site. The scheme was given an estimated construction cost of £4,100.
In order to provide protection during surgery, the addition of an underground emergency operating theatre was suggested later in 1938 and approved in mid-1939. The theatre section cost an estimated £1,500, with another £250 for a filtration unit, while a revised scheme for the original tunnel refuge, was given an estimate of £2,600. The work was carried out over the course of 1939-40, including a third underground section within the south-east region of the hospital grounds which provided a further refuge and kitchen.
The surgical block and underground theatre were the only two sections of the hospital to be in full-time operation during the war. Although there were no causalities, bomb damage suffered in July 1940 prompted the decision that as many patients as possible should be sent to a less vulnerable site. Dorchester's Minterne House was requisitioned for use as a hospital and began taking patients in March 1941. Although Portland's hospital was then reduced to casualty and emergency use, outpatient facilities continued to operate for personnel of the naval base. Meanwhile, the hospital suffered further bomb damage in March and June 1942, which resulted in the demolition of the remains of the Officers' Block and Junior Surgeon's Quarters. Over the course of the war, the hospital would receive 5,222 inpatients in total.
Post-war use and handover of hospital to the NHS
In July 1956, a sun lodge was opened in the hospital grounds by Sir George Creasy, Admiral of the Fleet and Commander in Chief Portsmouth. It was erected in the memory of Leading Seaman Jack Mantle, who was killed on 4 July 1940 during the German air raid on HMS Foylebank, which was berthed in Portland Harbour at the time. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions in defending the ship. However, the new sun lodge suffered from the instability of the land it was erected on and was finally demolished in 1989.
By the mid-1950s, the hospital had become surplus to the requirements of the Royal Navy, prompting the decision to transfer the eight acre site to the Ministry of Health. At the time, the site and its buildings were valued at £97,000, with an additional £17,630 worth of plant and machinery. Lieutenant Commander Laws handed the site over to the National Health Service on 27 September 1957. It opened to NHS patients by 6 October that year, while a new extension was soon added, and all surgical and medical wards given new names. The closure of the hospital left the sick bay at HMS Osprey as HM Naval Base Portland's main medical facility. A medical and dental centre was also later opened at Hardy Site in the late 1980s.
Although the underground theatre's post-war use remains unclear, it was still equipped and functional in 1957, and had been rewired during 1954-55. Once the NHS took over the site, the theatre was stripped out and the operating table installed at the Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester. In 1996, the Portland Rotary were successful in arranging access to the theatre, along with the surviving refuge, for a weekend of public tours. However, steel gates were then placed at the entrances and the site has remained closed to the public since.
In the mid-20th century, the original Infectious Diseases Hospital was transformed into married quarters for use of the Admiralty Police. All of the buildings on the site later became disused and were subsequently demolished in 1976. Throughout the late 20th century and into the 21st century, a number of then-redundant buildings around the main hospital site were demolished. One of the buildings on the former Sick Quarters site became Underhill Surgery in 1989. It was then relocated after planning permission was approved in the early 1990s to convert and extend the former porter's lodge and mortuary building into a new surgery, the Gatehouse Medical Centre. It began operating in July 1995 and continues to operate to date as the Gatehouse Surgery under Royal Manor Health Care.
In 2003-05, the last of the surviving buildings on the former Sick Quarters site were demolished to make way for Foylebank Way and Foylebank Court, a residential site for the elderly, although the original part of the P.M.O's Residence was incorporated into the new development.
References
The following is an A-Z list of references for this page.
1) A History of The Royal Naval Hospital Portland - Reg Perry - Artsmiths - May 1997 - book
2) Accounts and Papers: Sixteen Volumes - Navy, Defence, House of Commons - Volume XXII - House of Commons - 1958 - report
3) Disused Stations Site Record - Portland Hospital Halt - Nick Catford - website page
4) HMS Osprey: Information Handbook - 11th edition - 1984 - The Constitutional Press Ltd - book
5) Isle of Portland Railways - Volume Two - The Weymouth & Portland Railway/The Easton & Church Hope Railway - B. L. Jackson - The Oakwood Press - 2000 - ISBN: 978-0853615514 - page 91 - book
6) NHS - Portland Hospital Overview - website page
7) Ordnance Survey - various maps from 1864
8) Portland Harbour and its Defences Report - anonymous author - undated - pages 22-23
9) The National Archives - Portland Passive Defence Scheme: financial provision for additional items - declassified document - 1939-40 - website page
10) The Royal Naval Medical Service - Volume 1: Administration - Surgeon Commander J. L. S. Coulter - 1956 - report
11) The Urban Explorer - Portland Underground Hospital - website page
12) Pastscape - Portland Hospital - website page
13) The British Newspaper Archive - various contemporary newspaper articles - website page
14) The Rise and Fall of Portland Naval Base 1845-1995 - Geoffrey Carter - 1998 - report
In recent years, both the surviving hospital building and the Gatehouse Surgery have been designated Important Local Buildings. The former is considered as being part of a "prominent group of Edwardian naval buildings" (alongside the three former Admiralty residences at Castle Road), while also retaining "an important link with the Royal Navy's former presence". In 2019, Portland Town Council added the World War II underground features to their list of local heritage assets.
History
Original medical facilities at Portland
In the mid-19th century, Portland Roads was transformed into a harbour of refuge with the building of two breakwater arms between 1849-72. In addition to the construction of the breakwaters and coaling facilities for the Royal Navy's fleet of steam-powered warships, other naval facilities were established, including a general naval hospital within the dockyard in the late 1860s. The Admiralty did not originally intend to establish any medical facilities at Portland, but to transport any sick and injured naval personnel to the RN Hospital at Haslar. At the end of 1866, with the breakwater works virtually completed, the Admiralty decided to survey some of the soon-to-be vacant buildings at Portland Nore, which were used in connection with the works, to ascertain if any would be suitable for conversion into sick quarters. A hospital was subsequently established within two of the buildings. They were purchased by the Admiralty from the contractor Mr. John Leather for a cost of £5,185 in March 1867 and subsequently converted to provide two wards and other associated facilities.
As the hospital was only a small facility, plans were soon made for the construction of a larger hospital. During his inspection of the existing hospital in 1872, Sir Alexander Armstrong, the Director-General of the Medical Department of the Navy, suggested that land to the east of Castle Road would prove an "admirable" site for a new facility. Although plans were then developed by the Director of Works, the required expenditure to build it was not approved. Instead the Admiralty looked at the lower cost option of potentially transforming Portland Castle into a hospital, however the owners, the War Department, felt the site was unsuitable, leaving the Admiralty to drop plans for a new hospital. Instead, in 1872-74, a large building at Portland Nore was converted using convict labour to provide additional hospital accommodation, and an attached dead house built.
In c. 1890, the dockyard hospital was recorded as holding 76 beds within two blocks, which included an officers' ward and infectious diseases department. Meanwhile, throughout the 1870s and beyond, Portland Harbour's use by the Royal Navy continued to increase, resulting in the need for larger and improved facilities to serve the Fleet. New sick quarters were established off Castle Road during the 1880s. In 1899-1900, an infectious diseases hospital was built on the east side of the Merchant's Incline by Messrs. W. Hill and Company of Gosport for an estimated £12,200.
Construction and early use of the Royal Naval General Hospital at Castle Road
As greater facilities were required than could be provided by the hospital in the dockyard, a Royal Naval General Hospital to be built at Castle Road was approved in the Naval Estimates for 1900-01. The hospital was designed in 1901 and built by Messrs Wakeham Bros of Plymouth in 1901-04. In its original guise, the hospital, which opened in 1904, was made up of five primary buildings connected by a covered way: the medical block, surgical block, kitchen, administrative block and officers' block. The various buildings of the Sick Quarters below the new site were soon incorporated into the General Hospital site, while the original hospital building in the dockyard became torpedo workshops.
During World War I, the hospital provided medical attention to casualties of the Grand Fleet from Scapa Flow. To provide access by rail, a private halt, known as the Portland Hospital Halt, was established. By the 1930s, the hospital saw a decreasing amount of use by the navy and the Admiralty began considering its future, but despite this it remained operational.
Use during the Second World War
With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, and the fall of France the following year, the presence of Portland's naval base saw the island become a major target for the Luftwaffe, who carried out 48 attacks there over the course of the war. As part of pre-war plans for Portland's passive defence scheme, an underground refuge for staff and patients was approved in 1938. The original design had two approach tunnels linking to the main refuge tunnel behind the main hospital site. The scheme was given an estimated construction cost of £4,100.
In order to provide protection during surgery, the addition of an underground emergency operating theatre was suggested later in 1938 and approved in mid-1939. The theatre section cost an estimated £1,500, with another £250 for a filtration unit, while a revised scheme for the original tunnel refuge, was given an estimate of £2,600. The work was carried out over the course of 1939-40, including a third underground section within the south-east region of the hospital grounds which provided a further refuge and kitchen.
The surgical block and underground theatre were the only two sections of the hospital to be in full-time operation during the war. Although there were no causalities, bomb damage suffered in July 1940 prompted the decision that as many patients as possible should be sent to a less vulnerable site. Dorchester's Minterne House was requisitioned for use as a hospital and began taking patients in March 1941. Although Portland's hospital was then reduced to casualty and emergency use, outpatient facilities continued to operate for personnel of the naval base. Meanwhile, the hospital suffered further bomb damage in March and June 1942, which resulted in the demolition of the remains of the Officers' Block and Junior Surgeon's Quarters. Over the course of the war, the hospital would receive 5,222 inpatients in total.
Post-war use and handover of hospital to the NHS
In July 1956, a sun lodge was opened in the hospital grounds by Sir George Creasy, Admiral of the Fleet and Commander in Chief Portsmouth. It was erected in the memory of Leading Seaman Jack Mantle, who was killed on 4 July 1940 during the German air raid on HMS Foylebank, which was berthed in Portland Harbour at the time. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions in defending the ship. However, the new sun lodge suffered from the instability of the land it was erected on and was finally demolished in 1989.
By the mid-1950s, the hospital had become surplus to the requirements of the Royal Navy, prompting the decision to transfer the eight acre site to the Ministry of Health. At the time, the site and its buildings were valued at £97,000, with an additional £17,630 worth of plant and machinery. Lieutenant Commander Laws handed the site over to the National Health Service on 27 September 1957. It opened to NHS patients by 6 October that year, while a new extension was soon added, and all surgical and medical wards given new names. The closure of the hospital left the sick bay at HMS Osprey as HM Naval Base Portland's main medical facility. A medical and dental centre was also later opened at Hardy Site in the late 1980s.
Although the underground theatre's post-war use remains unclear, it was still equipped and functional in 1957, and had been rewired during 1954-55. Once the NHS took over the site, the theatre was stripped out and the operating table installed at the Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester. In 1996, the Portland Rotary were successful in arranging access to the theatre, along with the surviving refuge, for a weekend of public tours. However, steel gates were then placed at the entrances and the site has remained closed to the public since.
In the mid-20th century, the original Infectious Diseases Hospital was transformed into married quarters for use of the Admiralty Police. All of the buildings on the site later became disused and were subsequently demolished in 1976. Throughout the late 20th century and into the 21st century, a number of then-redundant buildings around the main hospital site were demolished. One of the buildings on the former Sick Quarters site became Underhill Surgery in 1989. It was then relocated after planning permission was approved in the early 1990s to convert and extend the former porter's lodge and mortuary building into a new surgery, the Gatehouse Medical Centre. It began operating in July 1995 and continues to operate to date as the Gatehouse Surgery under Royal Manor Health Care.
In 2003-05, the last of the surviving buildings on the former Sick Quarters site were demolished to make way for Foylebank Way and Foylebank Court, a residential site for the elderly, although the original part of the P.M.O's Residence was incorporated into the new development.
References
The following is an A-Z list of references for this page.
1) A History of The Royal Naval Hospital Portland - Reg Perry - Artsmiths - May 1997 - book
2) Accounts and Papers: Sixteen Volumes - Navy, Defence, House of Commons - Volume XXII - House of Commons - 1958 - report
3) Disused Stations Site Record - Portland Hospital Halt - Nick Catford - website page
4) HMS Osprey: Information Handbook - 11th edition - 1984 - The Constitutional Press Ltd - book
5) Isle of Portland Railways - Volume Two - The Weymouth & Portland Railway/The Easton & Church Hope Railway - B. L. Jackson - The Oakwood Press - 2000 - ISBN: 978-0853615514 - page 91 - book
6) NHS - Portland Hospital Overview - website page
7) Ordnance Survey - various maps from 1864
8) Portland Harbour and its Defences Report - anonymous author - undated - pages 22-23
9) The National Archives - Portland Passive Defence Scheme: financial provision for additional items - declassified document - 1939-40 - website page
10) The Royal Naval Medical Service - Volume 1: Administration - Surgeon Commander J. L. S. Coulter - 1956 - report
11) The Urban Explorer - Portland Underground Hospital - website page
12) Pastscape - Portland Hospital - website page
13) The British Newspaper Archive - various contemporary newspaper articles - website page
14) The Rise and Fall of Portland Naval Base 1845-1995 - Geoffrey Carter - 1998 - report
Gallery
These images can be enlarged by clicking on them. Some images have information attached to them, and to view this you can either enlarge the image or hover the mouse over each thumbnail.
World War II Underground Sections
The following photographs have been kindly supplied by Rob Spears for inclusion on this page.
1933 plan of RN Hospital Portland
A basic plan of the hospital site, based on a 1933 map. The plan can be opened by clicking on it.
