War time origins

In 1914, during the First World War, the Astor family invited the Canadian Red Cross to build a military hospital on part of the Cliveden estate.^[1] The Red Cross built a small hospital, the HRH Duchess of Connaught Hospital, on the site.^[2] It was named after the Duchess of Connaught who had served as Viceregal consort of Canada.^[3]

In the Second World War, the Canadian Red Cross demolished many of the existing buildings to make way for a new, larger hospital with more equipment; this was named the Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital.^[2]

General Hospital

After the war the hospital was donated to the British Government for use as a general hospital and research centre into rheumatism in children.^[2] After opening to the public in 1947, it came under the supervision of the newly formed National Health Service.^[2] The hospital also developed a large maternity unit at this time.^[2]

The painter Stanley Spencer, who lived in nearby Cookham, died in the hospital in 1959 from cancer, having undergone an unsuccessful operation there the year before.^[4] Dr Barbara Ansell, the founder of paediatric rheumatology, worked at the hospital from the 1960s through to the 1980s.^[2]

Closure

The hospital closed and was abandoned in 1985 and lay derelict for two decades while the National Trust, who owned the site since 1942, explored options for its development.^[2] Many pieces of the hospital's old equipment lay there for years. It was demolished in 2006 to make way for a housing development for people aged 55 and over called Cliveden Village.^[5][6]