Right: In its first 30 years, Bromley Cottage Hospital,
pictured as it was in 1869, managed to cover all
its out-goings from income, having spent £6,700
on land and buildings. Among the operations on
the 3,266 patients admitted was the successful
amputation on a man who had caught his forearm
in the rollers of a chaff cutter.
He was particularly concerned about the conditions
of certain cottages, notably “ in New Bromley (
roughly between Bromley and Widmore, more
of which later in the series) and Farwig in which
the poorest live. Originally badly designed and
constructed, they are now old and dilapidated...”
The board, however, was fighting a losing battle.
Bromley was by now in an Upstairs, Downstairs
situation. This resulted in inevitable clashes between
the working class and the forerunners of the present
day London commuters who, having moved into more
healthy areas outside the town centre, were reluctant
A charming portrayal of
to pay out for improvements.
the old cottage hospital.
Bromley was also outgrowing itself both in Below: Corner of Church
population and the number of new houses. Experts
Road much as it would
were needed to “safeguard the interests of public
have been in the days
health against the wiles of the jerry builder and the
of Dr Scott whose house
ignorance and indifference of the householder. “ With
was close by.
the establishment of a Rural Sanitary Authority, and
the West Kent Main Sewerage Board in 1878, the
problem seemed to be have been solved.
One distinctly healthy development was the Cottage
Hospital Movement which, started in 1859, reached
Bromley in 1869 with the purchase of two small
cottages in Pieter’s Lane, a rough lane leading to
a footpath through fields towards Hayes. ( later to
become Cromwell Avenue). The £1,700 building
costs, and the £150 on fittings, was raised by
subscription and a six bed unit was ready for patients
in May, 1869.
In 1875 the cottages made way for a new building
- but by 1885 there were insufficient beds. Two years
later the number increased to 20 beds.
The cottage hospital continued to meet increasing
demand, being absorbed into the NHS in 1948.
Bromley & District Hospital as it became then, closed
with the opening of the new multi million pound
Princess Royal University Hospital at Farnborough,
opened by Princess Anne in 2003.
Also opened in 1865 on the ground floor of the
White Hart was Bromley Homeopathic Dispensary.
This was taken over in 1876 by Dr Robert Phillips.
Once again, Bromley could boast its medical
credentials. His new practice at Burlington House,
Widmore, was so widely admired that, following his
death in 1888, a Homeopathic Cottage Hospital
was open in his memory at the junction of Park Road
with Widmore Road.
In June, 1900, the second Phillips Memorial
Hospital - enlarged in 1907 - was opened on the
site of the White Hart Field now the Queens Garden.
Badly damaged in World War Two, it was used to
accommodate the homeless in the post war years. It
was demolished in the 1950s to make way for the
then Lownds Avenue car park.
MARCH ISSUE | 15
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