The Peace Hospice, Watford

Image: © Cathy Cox Taken: 8 Feb 2008

The Peace Hospice is run by a charitable trust and provides specialised palliative care for people with terminal illnesses in the South West Hertfordshire area. The building was originally the Peace Memorial Hospital and the Hospital Records Database http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/hospitalrecords/details.asp?id=739&page=68 has this to say about it: The Peace Memorial Hospital in Watford began life as the Watford District Cottage Hospital in the 1880s. However, by 1917 the idea of replacing the cottage Hospital with a more modern hospital, as a memorial to those who had died in the First World War and as a permanent memorial to peace, was discussed. The project was financed on the whole by public subscription and donation. The Watford Board of Guardians bought the old cottage hospital and a new building was erected in Rickmansworth Road. The Watford and District Peace Memorial Hospital was opened in 1925 by Princess Mary. On 5 July 1948 control of the hospital passed to the North West Metropolitan Hospital Board and became known as the Watford Peace Memorial Hospital. In 1965 the hospital moved to a site in Vicarage Road on the edge of Watford and became a part of Watford General Hospital. In 1985 the remaining services in the original building were moved to the Shroedells (the old workhouse) site and in 1986 the buildings were demolished. This last statement is patently untrue. The two wings and some of the clutter behind were demolished but the central building was restored and refurbished to accommodate the hospice which opened, originally as a day centre, in 1996, and then for inpatients in 2001 http://www.peacehospice.co.uk/

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