Dartford: Former Joyce Green Hospital site

Image: © Nigel Cox Taken: 2 Mar 2008

This somewhat eerie place is the site of the former Joyce Green Hospital. It was built between 1901 and 1903 by the Metropolitan Asylums Board as a smallpox isolation hospital to replace the ships previously used for that purpose moored in the River Thames nearby. It was later used for the hospitalization of patients with other infectious diseases such as diphtheria, scarlet fever, measles and whooping-cough. It ultimately became a general hospital as part of the NHS before finally closing and being demolished in 2000. It had a tramway that used to convey patients from the jetties on the River Thames to the hospital and this may be the route of that tramway. All scales of the Ordnance Survey mapping currently show the former hospital layout but there is little left on the ground that can be identified on the maps, apart from the distant pylon, so I may be wrong with that assumption. The building work going on to the right is part of the new Bridge redevelopment of the site.

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