Visited with @Chloe Explores
As we were driving past we saw the gates open and a police car leaving the site. Security there also and active. However, the place where everyone gets in was still open and we managed the explore without bumping into security. We did hear someone walking around above us and calling out but managed to get to another building.
Some of the buildings are open and some are not, couldn’t get to the hairdressers but the museum was open but empty. Very clean apart from where the asbestos removal teams have been in the main building. A fairly quick stealth visit but nice to tick off the to do list.
History -
Benenden Hospital was opened in 1907 by the National Association for the Establishment and Maintenance of Sanatoria - to treat postal workers suffering from tuberculosis.
The Association was a consortium founded by trade unions and friendly societies and the Benenden Healthcare Society (formerly the Post Office and Civil Service Sanatoria) became a member. By 1951 the Association had disbanded, and the Benenden Healthcare Society took over the sanatorium.
With cases of TB declining, the Benenden Healthcare Society expanded treatment to include chest complaints and cancer, shortly afterwards building an operating theatre, surgical wards and an x-ray department.
Today the Benenden Healthcare Society is known as Benenden Health. Benenden offers a range of discretionary healthcare and well-being services to individual and business healthcare members.
Benenden Hospital is a subsidiary and is an independent hospital with charitable status, which continues the principle of providing first-class treatment for a wide range of specialities.
PRESS RELEASE:
16th November 2020
Don’t destroy it, convert it into handsome houses.
An imposing 1907 Sanatorium built under the patronage of King Edward VII and his sister for Post Office Union workers is under threat of total demolition. SAVE Britain’s Heritage is now championing its conversion into a series of terraced houses with new housing on land behind it.
The Benenden Tuberculosis Sanatorium near Tunbridge Wells is a remarkable example of Royal patronage that evolved in a wholly unexpected manner to produce two, not one, imposing sanitoriums at a time when Tuberculosis was known as the White Plague.
The design for the hospital was the winning entry in a design competition held under the patronage of Edward VII to build a new Tuberculosis hospital offering the latest medical treatments developed in Germany and Switzerland on the most advanced lines.
The sanatorium stands on a sunny south-facing slope in the Hamlet of East End, just two miles from the main village of Benenden, with magnificent views over an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty – just what modern house builders dream of.
Yet a new draft Neighbourhood Development Plan currently out for consultation with Tunbridge Wells Borough Council has allocated the historic site for the construction of 49 new homes, referring to the historic sanatorium as a 'redundant hospital building’. Outline planning permission for demolishing the sanatorium was previously granted by the council to Benenden Hospital Trust in 2013.
SAVE calls on Tunbridge Wells Borough Council and Benenden Parish Council to amend the draft Neighbourhood Development Plan to acknowledge the Edwardian Sanatorium as a non-designated heritage asset of national significance that must be retained and converted as part of their site allocation for housing at the hospital site. Local people in the hamlet of East End where the hospital is situated have also strongly objected.
As we were driving past we saw the gates open and a police car leaving the site. Security there also and active. However, the place where everyone gets in was still open and we managed the explore without bumping into security. We did hear someone walking around above us and calling out but managed to get to another building.
Some of the buildings are open and some are not, couldn’t get to the hairdressers but the museum was open but empty. Very clean apart from where the asbestos removal teams have been in the main building. A fairly quick stealth visit but nice to tick off the to do list.
History -
Benenden Hospital was opened in 1907 by the National Association for the Establishment and Maintenance of Sanatoria - to treat postal workers suffering from tuberculosis.
The Association was a consortium founded by trade unions and friendly societies and the Benenden Healthcare Society (formerly the Post Office and Civil Service Sanatoria) became a member. By 1951 the Association had disbanded, and the Benenden Healthcare Society took over the sanatorium.
With cases of TB declining, the Benenden Healthcare Society expanded treatment to include chest complaints and cancer, shortly afterwards building an operating theatre, surgical wards and an x-ray department.
Today the Benenden Healthcare Society is known as Benenden Health. Benenden offers a range of discretionary healthcare and well-being services to individual and business healthcare members.
Benenden Hospital is a subsidiary and is an independent hospital with charitable status, which continues the principle of providing first-class treatment for a wide range of specialities.
PRESS RELEASE:
16th November 2020
Don’t destroy it, convert it into handsome houses.
An imposing 1907 Sanatorium built under the patronage of King Edward VII and his sister for Post Office Union workers is under threat of total demolition. SAVE Britain’s Heritage is now championing its conversion into a series of terraced houses with new housing on land behind it.
The Benenden Tuberculosis Sanatorium near Tunbridge Wells is a remarkable example of Royal patronage that evolved in a wholly unexpected manner to produce two, not one, imposing sanitoriums at a time when Tuberculosis was known as the White Plague.
The design for the hospital was the winning entry in a design competition held under the patronage of Edward VII to build a new Tuberculosis hospital offering the latest medical treatments developed in Germany and Switzerland on the most advanced lines.
The sanatorium stands on a sunny south-facing slope in the Hamlet of East End, just two miles from the main village of Benenden, with magnificent views over an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty – just what modern house builders dream of.
Yet a new draft Neighbourhood Development Plan currently out for consultation with Tunbridge Wells Borough Council has allocated the historic site for the construction of 49 new homes, referring to the historic sanatorium as a 'redundant hospital building’. Outline planning permission for demolishing the sanatorium was previously granted by the council to Benenden Hospital Trust in 2013.
SAVE calls on Tunbridge Wells Borough Council and Benenden Parish Council to amend the draft Neighbourhood Development Plan to acknowledge the Edwardian Sanatorium as a non-designated heritage asset of national significance that must be retained and converted as part of their site allocation for housing at the hospital site. Local people in the hamlet of East End where the hospital is situated have also strongly objected.
