Report - Royal Hospital Haslar, Gosport, Hampshire - April 2011

[chrisr86]

Visited here with Olz9181, AnotherMansCause and Robbiekhan on a brilliant sunny day. I'm sure many people are familiar with Haslar but here's some information for those who may not be.

From Royal Hospital Haslar:

The Haslar site was bought in 1745. It is a glorious 55-acre site overlooking the mouth of Portsmouth harbour, and it became the first purpose-built hospital for the Royal Navy. It was opened in 1754 and took some 1,800 patients. Its distinctive high walls were there to prevent the patients from escaping should they wish to do so, having been press-ganged into the Navy initially. It is historically very interesting. The expression "up the creek" refers to Haslar creek, which is not a good place to be. It was for years the main home of the Royal Naval Medical Service, but following changes it eventually became the only military hospital in the United Kingdom, and was renamed the Royal Hospital Haslar. That was the position on 10 December 1998. On that date, the Government announced they were proposing that the military forces withdraw from Haslar, and it was stated that the hospital would close in about two years. In fact, some 10 years later the Royal Hospital Haslar [was] still there.

And a nice little tidbit of information for those among us who, like me, are Doctor Who fans (lifted from Haslar Royal Naval Navy Hospital):

In his audience with radio broadcast called An Hour with Jon Pertwee the actor who played Worzel Gummidge, Dr Who and Chief Petty Officer Pertwee in the Navy Lark talks about his time at Haslar Hospital. He was hit by shrapnel during a bombing at Portsmouth and was thought to be dead. The Officers Mess larder fridge was being used as a temporarily mortuary and Jon Pertwee was put in there and woke up later when part of a body fell on him. He surprised the guard when he banged on the temporarily morgue and was taken to Haslar to recover from his wounds.

As there's loads to see here and it's not got too many reports already I've included quite a lot of photos (I tried to cut it down as much as possible... from about 100 shots!).

View from the roof of the sunrise over Haslar.

Morning sunlight streaming in.

Looking out into one of the courtyard areas.

Lots of nice signage around this place.

Still lots of nice equipment around too, including one certain famous item which will be shown later on...

... although sadly things like beds and some other easily-removable things aren't around anymore.

We climbed the stairs...

... to the roof walkways...

... then descended to the service tunnels. Lights were on which was a bit concerning, but we pressed forward and found no reason to worry.

We found strange pictures on the walls in one part of the tunnels.

Nice big wooden doors in the central block - one of the older parts of the building if I'm not mistaken.

The famous emblem!

"Hello, AnotherMansCause speaking, you're through to the eye clinic. How may I help you?"

The grail of Haslar! (MRI machine)

... Although it looks like a portal's opened up in it and there's now an inter-dimensional creature coming through.

And finally, a nice ground-level shot of the central block.

Hope you enjoyed this half as much as we did exploring it