Lost Hospitals of Brighton and Hove

Eleven hospitals in 1948

When Britain celebrated the birth of the National Health Service in 1948, there were eleven hospitals in Brighton and Hove. Today only four of them remain. What happened to the seven missing hospitals? Should we mourn their loss? Lost Hospitals of Brighton and Hove examines the part those hospitals played in providing health care to local people during the fifty years before the last of them closed.

Memories of patients and staff

Thanks to Harry Gaston’s impeccable research, and the memories of many people who worked in or were treated in them, it is possible to build up a picture of the seven hospitals – Bevendean, Foredown, Hove General, Lady Chichester, New Sussex Hospital for Women, Sussex Maternity and the Sussex Throat and Ear.

Many have been demolished

Little now remains of these hospitals. Many of the buildings have been demolished. Some now house flats and apartments; a couple serve other health purposes although none, like some of those in London, are now the sites of supermarkets or even prisons.

Where you can buy the book

You can buy this fascinating book price £12 available directly from Friends of Brighton & Hove Hospitals using a credit/debit card here. Look in the right hand navigation for ‘Harry Gaston’s books’. Locally the book can be bought at City Books and Kemp Town Bookshop.

Comments about this page

  • I can remember going to Hove General to have a hole in my leg stitched up after I fell off my bike and the brake lever went into my leg. They were very good to me. This would have been about 1954, I was living at 5a Waterloo Street at the time.

    By Dennis Fielder (28/10/2013)
  • Hove General was a lovely hospital. Nursing care was second to none. Now a block of flats – such a shame.

    By Jenny Bainbridge (28/10/2013)
  • I remember working at the New Sussex Hospital & living in the nurses home. This would have been mid to late 1980s.
    Then Brighton General & Royal Sussex County, before moving away. So much has changed in the NHS since I started as a teenager, now in the last leg of my career I can look back &see what was a mostly better & teamwork way of working than now. Our ‘jobs’ as Nurses have advanced beyond what I thought at the time.

    By Michael Anderson (27/05/2023)
  • I worked as a cook at Hove General in the late 1960`s.
    I enjoyed my time there. It was the time of the “Matron” and she ran the Hospital.
    I was an apprentice at that time and at college.
    The menu for Sunday said egg custard , So I made
    the French
    On Monday morning what I heard was
    ” where are all my eggs ”
    She called my boss and he put her right.
    But I did keep my head down for a few days.

    By Maurice Laker (08/11/2023)
  • Has any one got any photos of Hove general?
    It seem to be lost in time.

    M Laker.

    By Maurice Laker (08/11/2023)
  • The James Gray Collection of BH photos has a couple that show the hospital, one near to and another from a distance.

    By Dr Geoffrey Mead (11/11/2023)

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