Courtesy of Cambridgeshire Collection, H.Inf.K30 3071

Infectious Diseases Hospital/ The Vineries / Isolation Hospital / Brookfields Hospital, Cambridge

The Cambridge Isolation Hospital and its evolution

The Cambridge Infectious Diseases Hospital was built in 1884. In 1913 the premises are known both as ‘Infectious Diseases Hospital” and as ‘The Vineries.” The Vineries was also the name given to Verandah Cottage.

1891 Hospital

William Kirkham Baker, 28, custodian of Hospital and Public Disinfection, b Cambridge

Sarah Jane, 32, b Herts

Frances Catherine Walker, 31, sick nurse, b Dublin

Grace Sophia Bidwell, 8, b Cambridge

Harriet Radford,16, servant, b Cambridge

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24 September 1901
The Infectious Diseases Hospital, long known as the Sanatorium, stood on Mill Road at the centre of Cambridge’s system for controlling infectious disease. All cases of scarlet fever, diphtheria, typhoid fever and smallpox were notified there, and whenever isolation at home proved difficult patients were removed to the hospital for treatment. Although Romsey Town had spread rapidly into what had recently been open countryside, the Sanatorium still stood on the edge of the town, commanding views across open fields. A newly constructed diphtheria block had been erected in the large field behind the hospital. Credit: Mike Petty Archive.

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1913 (Kellys)

Infectious Diseases Hospital, The Vineries

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12 March 1926
A Cambridge school girl died of small-pox at the Infectious Diseases Hospital, Mill Road and as a result the East Road Boys’, Girls’ and Infants’ Schools have been closed for at least a week for disinfection. The Medical Officer strongly advises people to get vaccinated. The last outbreak occurred in 1921 when a man was affected. There was also an isolated outbreak in 1919
Credit: Mike Petty Archive, Cambridge East Road Scrapbook 1897 to 1990, reference 1926 03 12.

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It was later renamed the Cambridge Borough Isolation Hospital and later, in 1947, Brookfields Hospital. In 1913 its surgeon was Frederick Webb.

Photographs of staff and patients at the Cambridge Isolation Hospital, from the Cambridge Chronicle and University Journal, 17 September 1930.

1933

There was a scarlet fever epidemic in Foxton and quite a number of schoolchildren were taken to Brookfield. (Don Challis, Schooldays in Foxton)

The Brookfields Hospital site photographed in 2013.

Census

1913

Miss Wright, Matron

Further Information

• Download the full article on ‘Infectious Disease in Cambridge: The Cambridge Isolation Hospital and its evolution’ by Pat Richards, 1991
• http://www.creatingmycambridge.com/history-stories/victorian-isolation-hospital/
• The architect was Edwin Bays (1843 – 1909)