Selly Oak Hospital Accident & Emergency Department

June 2010 sees the begninning of the wind-down to closure of Selly Oak Hospital in South Birmingham with the transference of its functions to the new Queen Elizabeth ’super hospital’ some half a mile away. The 140 -year-old site is due for clearance in the coming months freeing 43 acres for redevelopment and currently houses a wide-spectrum of buildings from various decades of the facilities’ history with a large number dating back to its inception. Try as I might I have yet to come across a definiteive plan of exactly what is to be demolished so I thought it worth documenting as much as possible whilst it’s still in situ!

The site was originally developed in 1870 as King’s Norton Union Workhouse, on Raddlebarn Road, by King’s Norton Poor Law Union to replace their workhouse which had been in operation on King’s Norton Green since 1729.  As with all workhouses, the function was to provide relief to those, including many whole families, who could not financially support themselves in pre-Welfare State times under the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act. The Amendment Act stated the a parish could only provide such services to those within its facilities (as opposed to previously whereby alms/support could be dispensed to those outside such institutions also) and thus led to a dramatic increase in Workhouse development.

Further expansion of the workhouse site took place in 1897 with a new infirmary for 250 patients costing £45,000 with a subsequent major redevelopment of facilities commencing in 1902 with blocks for a further 1000 ‘inmates’, a doubling of the infirmary in 1907 including operating theatres and the addition of the Woodlands Nurses Home in 1908. In 1911, following a merging of the Aston and Birmngham Unions, Kings Norton Union was absorbed into the new Birmingham Union and the workhouse renamed Selly Oak Hsopital. This saw an increasing emphasis on the medical side of the facilities’ role with the workhouse function increasingly turned-over to elderly and chronically sick pateients under the monicker of Selly Oak House, which itself was absorbed into the ‘Hospital’ with the formation of the NHS in 1948.

Further phases of development have taken place over the years leading to Selly Oak Hospital operating in a wide-range of buildings from 19th Century workhouse remnants (of which there are many) to 1960’s/70’s prefabricated concrete monstrosities.  A more recent development, however, has been the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine which has occuppied part of the Hospital since 2001 to treat injured service personnel (following a closure programme of Ministry of Defence Hospitals) which is staffed by medical personnel from the Armed Forces who can also be seen throughout the hospital on various duties (inclouding A&E cover at times).

In 1995, Selly Oak Hospital was joined with the the Queen Elizabeth Hospital to form the University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust. Follwing a policy of combining services in large super hospitals – one much the same as rang the death knell for the many specialist hospitals that used to be dotted around the City a couple of decades earlier – £600m was spent on the development of the Queen Elizabeth Hopsital site with its new facilities coming online during 2010, heralding the closure of Selly Oak Hospital as surplus to requirements.

As a footnote, I’ve been reading the list of Graded buildings in Selly Oak and haven’t come across any of those of the former workhouse and think it would be a sad loss if they were all bulldozed in the coming months.  If anyone can shed any light on that, or indeed on plans mooted for the site, I’d be glad to hear from you.

Below I have provided a selection of photographs taken around the hospital of both the remaining workhouse structures and more recent developments.

Birmingham and Midland Eye Hospital - corner of Church Street and Barwick Street

Opened in 1883 to accomodate the hospital’s move from Cannon Street in 1823, the building – designed by Payne & Talbot – is fortunately still standing and is a prime example of Victorian Architecture as can be seen above.

As with the other City Centre hospitals – the building was insufficient to cope with today’s demands of a hi-tch hospital and a move to more centralized, multi-disciplinary hospital sites (and now ‘Super Hospitals’) swept in during the 1970s and gathered pace during the 1980s and 90s;  the days were numbered for the specialist hospital. Along with the Birmingham and Midland Ear, Nose & Throat Hospital a few hundred yards away and the Birmingham and Midland Hospital for Skin and Urinary Diseases, the hospital’s function moved to Dudley Road ‘City’ Hospital and the building was vacated by the NHS.

In 2000 the vacant building underwent a major refurbishment and opened as the 600-room Hotel du Vin – a ’boutique hotel’ (no, I’m not certain what that is either) and the long-term future of this impressive Victorian building has thus been assured.

Birmingham Skin Hospital - John Bright Street

Opened in 1888 – following transfer of facilities from Newhall Street which began operating in 1881 – the Birmingham and Midland Hospital for Skin and Urinary Diseases operated from its John Bright Street base for nearly 100 years before its work was transferred to George Road Edgbaston and is now part of the Dudley Road ‘City’ Hospital group.

The hospital, as the name suggests, concerned itself with all manner of skin ailments and diseases and operated both an in and out-patient department from the site which was purpose built to house the hospital for the princely sum of £5,000!

Interestingly, the entrance for woman and children was via John Bright Street – as seen above – whilst the entrance for male patients was via the rear of the building on Beak Street (see below) – presumably to save them the embarrassment of being seen entering through the main entrance by women and children due to the moral incorrigibility of more ‘urinary’ related issues!  For in-patients, the ward originally held 21 beds and there wee also medicated bathing facilities to be found in the basement of the building.

With the move to consolidate specialisms within large, multi-disciplinary hospitals – and due to the building itself not being suitable for the modern hospital – closure came during the early 1980s and the building lay derelict for several years.

Whilst working at Edward’s Number 8 nightclub, which adjoined the hospital, in the late-1980s the building was acquired by either Edward Fewtrell or Ansell’s Leisure shortly after their takeover (I can’t precisely recall) and we had keys to the building as it was being used to store a few bits and pieces from the nightclubs and bars.  Naturally, we spent many hours exploring the old hospital which was left in remarkably good condition inside with a lot of fittings and furniture still in place, along with signage etc.

Our greatest find – whilst mooching around in  the dark in the basement area – was a wooden hand cart that was shaped like a coffin:  no idea how old that was as I presume it had been ‘retired’ to the basement many years prior to the hospitals closure . . . at least one would hope so!

Some time later the building was opened as The Hospital – another bar in the by-then rapidly declining John Bright Street bar/club area, killed-off by competition from Broad Street, pedestrianisation and the moving of major bus termini to more central points in the City – which ran for a relatively short period before closure.

Whilst apparently not a listed structure, it is still standing and, externally at least, in pristine condition as the photographs here show.  I am unaware as to any function served by the building itself and assume it is vacant as no external signage indicates otherwise but sitting,a s it does, in one of the City’s development areas I would posit its conversion to offices imminent.

Birmingham Ear and Throat Hospital - Edmund Street

Opening in 1891, the  Birmingham & Midland Ear, Nose & Throat Hospital in Edmund Street is one of a handful of what we would now call ’sepcialist’ hospitals that were constructed around the City Centre during the 19th Century.  Designed by Jethro Cossins and F. B. Peacock, the building today cuts an impressive figure as can be seen above.

The hospital closed in 1989 with a move to concentrate all medical treatment into a small number of large hospitals in the suburbs – Queen Elizabeth, East Birmingham etc.

I remember going there myself for some allergy testing in 1976 and it was incredibly antiquated then and a warren of tiny, high ceiling rooms:  I don’t whether or not their wards were operational at that time – or if indeed they took in-patients at that time, or whether, as it seemed, they just ran a series of clinics and day-patient procedures:  any further information would be greatly appreciated.

Whilst an impressive building, its interior was far from suited to being a modern hospital and accommodating the equipment and data systems needed for treatments today, not least due to its fairly restrictive size.

It is good to see that the building now enjoys Grade II listing status so will hopefully be around for many years to come albeit in a somewhat reduced form as it does now have a glass office edifice rising from the middle of it which, apparently, was designed to complement “beautifully the listed facade of [the] cherished building” – according to E.H.Smith who supplied the ceramic glazing tiles for the ‘One Eleven Edmund Street’ development within the facade of the hospital under the guidance of Glazzard Architects in 2001.

I, on the other hand, have a very different opinion of the ‘complementary’ nature of the construction . . .

Hollymoor Hospital c1915

Built in 1900 by Martin & Martin as an asylum, Hollmoor Hospital, due to its green dome capped water tower, has been something of a landmark in South Birmingham – the water tower being thankfully retained, along with some of the original buildings, to form a health centre. Opened in 1905 the hospital originally served as a ‘annexe’ to Rubery Hill Asylum a mile or so away but evolved over the years to become a psychiatric hospital and, much later, a general hospital before final closure in 1994. The hospital was also to serve as the Birmingham War Hospital Hollymoor (as in the above postcard) during World War I (again used by the military between 1942 and 1948 for soldiers suffering from ‘psychoneurosis’).

Demolition came shortly after closure in 1996 however, some of the original structures were preserved and are in use today but a large area of the site was turned over the the omnipresent housing association developers.

As an aside for those interested, during its construction the hospital had its own railway line spurred from the Halesowen Railway’s line at Rubery to deliver the contractor’s materials: no trace of this remains today.