New hospital's mixed heritage

1:38pm Thursday 3rd May 2001

A new hospital can be controversial. Patients and staff want it to be easy to get to. Fears of infection can mean local residents want it as far away as possible, while the final decision can come down to what land is available. LUCYA SZACHNOWSKI investigates the institutions which once stood on the site of the new Darent Valley Hospital.

BEFORE 1867, there was little provision to isolate those with infectious diseases.

Many were treated in workhouse infirmaries, or at home with great risks of diseases spreading. For mental health cases, there was no refuge but the workhouse.

This state of affairs was brought to the notice of London's Poor Law Board which formed, under the Metropolitan Poor Act, 1867, the Metropolitan Asylums District for “the reception and relief of poor persons infected with, or suffering from, fever or the disease of smallpox or who may be insane ”.

Its overseeing body, the Metropolitan Asylum's Board (MAB), bought land at Darenth, in Kent, for a “school for imbeciles”.

The foundation stone was laid in 1876. The idea behind it was to develop the potential of subnormal children so they might return to the community. An asylum for adults was built next to the school in 1880.

Although the motives behind the institutions may have been less than altruistic saving ratepayers' money the treatment was advanced for the time and results were encouraging. All the children were unpromising on entry. Few had any previous schooling. Within two years of opening , only a small proportion of its 500 children were found uneducable.

But, not long after the school opened, it was forced to share its land with a smallpox hospital.

Smallpox had reached epidemic proportions by 1880. The MAB was using some London hospitals for smallpox cases, but this met opposition from nearby residents. The lack of hospital beds meant whole streets were marked off with plague flags, isolation of cases was difficult.

In 1881, the MAB found the solution tented camps in the grounds of the Darenth Schools. The MAB owned the land and the “imbeciles” did not have the power to object.

When cold weather arrived, the patients were moved into new blocks originally built for the school. Additional land was bought at Gore Farm, Darenth, and a second smallpox camp was built, despite protests from local landowners, and work was started on Gore Farm Hospital Upper and Lower for smallpox and fever convalescents.

Yet, despite fears, there were no reported cases of smallpox in school staff or the imbeciles, thanks to stringent precautions against infection and a vaccination programme.

The hospitals changed over the years, but until the mid 20th century, they continued to serve the area.

Darenth Schools and Training Colony later became known as Darenth Park a self-sufficient asylum with its own farm, well, gas works and industrial premises where inmates could learn a trade.

In the 1960s, large mental health institutions fell out of fashion. Darenth Park was too big, too old, too run down and too isolated to meet modern care standards. It was slowly closed and long-term patients prepared for life back in the outside world. It finally shut in 1988.

In 1911, Gore Farm Hospital became the Southern Upper and Lower the Lower being handed over to the Military Authorities in 1915, to treat prisoners of war. The Southern became a general hospital during WW2 and continued to serve the people of Dartford until its closure in 1959.

Today, the new Darent Valley Hospital stands at the top of the hill where the first smallpox camps were sited.

l The information for this feature came from A History of the Darenth Hospitals, by Francine Payne.

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