Changing Face of Hemel Hempstead Number 2

St Paul's Hospital

By Alice Burger April 2006

Administration Block in background 1985
Alice Burgar
Maternity Wing, St. Paul's Hospital 1985
Alice Burgar
Replaced with Houses
L.C.Howard

St. Paul’s Hospital

St. Paul’s Hospital was situated on the hill overlooking Hemel Hempstead at the corner of Queensway and Allandale (formerly Queen Street and Redbourn Road) and opposite a church called St. Paul’s.

The Hospital was known as “Hempstead House” when built in 1835 as the Poor Law Workhouse and included an Infirmary for aged, infirm or chronically sick and was run by Dacorum Board of Guardians. A hundred years later the Old Infirmary housed maternity beds as well as elderly patients.

World War 11

During World War 11 Great Ormond Street evacuated sick children to St. Paul’s. At that time geriatric, adult surgical and medical wards were built in long single-storey huts, connected to the older buildings by covered walkways. These newer wards were named after illustrious medical people, such as Nightingale, Fleming, Rutherford and Cavell, and were joined by a long corridor known as The Hall. There were other buildings such as a pathology laboratory, nurses’ accommodation and an administration block.

National Heath  Service

In 1948 the hospital became part of the National Heath  Service, and over the following years the buildings and equipment became increasingly rundown and in need of modernisation. In the 1980’s services transferred to West Herts Hospital in the town centre and soon after St. Paul’s Hospital was demolished to make way for housing and streets named ‘Slippers Hill’, ‘Long Mimms’, ‘Little Mimms’, and ‘East Mimms’.

The Maternity wing

The Maternity wing at St. Paul’s Hospital that I first knew in the 1960’s was housed in the original brick-built 2-storey workhouse building. The wards were situated at right angles to the connecting corridors, and to the sluice and bathrooms, offices, and waiting rooms. There was a labour ward and operating theatre, and a premature baby unit. The high-ceiling wards for new mothers each held about a dozen high, iron-framed beds. There were large sash windows, which were flung open wide at night whatever the weather, in my case high piled snow and freezing winds.

The antenatal clinic was on the ground floor of the hospital. My first pregnancy was during the hard, snowy winter of 1962/63 and I was convinced someone had put the hospital at the top of  the hill for a joke! We pregnant Mums had to struggle, stagger and slip our way up the hill for appointments, fling open the heavy old entrance door to the clinic and lean, breathing heavily, against the door post, watched sympathetically by other Mums-to-be who had already tottered in and collapsed onto the chairs in the waiting room.

Delivery Day

Came Delivery Day—I was deposited at the hospital at dead of night – husband despatched home for a good night’s sleep, as husbands were not allowed to be present at the birth. I was escorted to the ancient and cavernous bathroom with its centrally positioned huge, high-sided old enamel bath, where I was expected to clamber in and out unaided during the first stage of labour. Later I was left to myself for the remainder of the night in a draughty curtained area just off the corridor, as the labour ward was overflowing with more needy and urgent cases. The strong smell of fried bacon for breakfast was rather off putting at the time, but by 9 am my daughter was born.

She was placed in a cot-on-wheels and covered with a pink blanket denoting she was a female. We spent ten days in Hospital.

Visiting Times

Visiting times, for husbands only, were strictly  limited, but flowers and cards were permitted. We were quite well cared for and watched over by starched-uniformed nurses in their glass –sided office at the ward entrance. I remember we had a ferocious sister who announced that there were multitudes of germs just waiting to attack us, and we should knock them on the head by constant washing. Our babies were removed to a night nursery each evening and were presumably bottle fed during the night, so that we new Mums got undisturbed rest—Oh! What a shock we were in for on our return home! We did not get to bath the babies until the day before our discharge, so again it was learn-as-you-go once we arrived home!

Over the years hundreds of babies must have been born at St. Paul’s and many other patients treated there. So it was with mixed feelings that we watched when the buildings of the Old Workhouse and Hospital were demolished.

 

 

 

 

 

This page was added on 19/07/2011.

Add your comment about this page

Your email address will not be published.

  • After qualification my first hospital post was at St Paul’s hospital
    A long corridor gave access to the wards and such was the state of the roof when it rained water dripped into the corridors and patients who were transported along the corridor had a plastic sheet place over them to keep them dry
    The standard of care given to the the patients by the compassionate and dedicated staff was of the highest order
    I look back with affection at the 6 months that I worked there as a house physician

    By Dr Frank Gattoni (30/09/2023)
  • I had my 3 children at St Paul’s in 1975,77 and 79
    I still remember one sister on the ward was very good at telling us mums what we were having before induced into labour. And having the castor oil in warm milk yuk that didn’t work for me any way babies were kept in the nursery being in there for a week with my firstborn and was sent home the next day with my 2nd those were the good old days now I live in Australia with my husband of 48 years the 3 children and 8 grandchild how time flys

    By Carol Furniss (17/02/2023)
  • I was born here in 1971. I lived quite close with a large grassed area between the hospital and my house. I remember using the hospital as a cut through and playing in the long grassed area which was fenced off, using the tennis court (often getting kicked out or chased out by security). They built new flats opposite the Bellgate PH around 1984 and remember the police chasing us out of there. They built houses on the grassed area around 1987 then later on the hospital site itself. Later in 2008 I had an interview for a job at Slippers Hill NHS. I got the job and was based in Ware, Herts. That was my last visit to the old St Pauls site.

    By Barry Trustram (01/12/2022)
  • I was born there February 1956..
    Lived in Long Chaulden, went to Ross Gate infants then Micklem school. Moved to Dagenham in 1966.

    By Elaine Gardiner Nee Wright (17/04/2022)
  • I worked in the Maternity Unit between 1974 and 1979 firstly on day duty on ward 7 for 18 months, prior to transferring onto night duty working on both Post Natal Wards and the Special Baby Unit, I really enjoyed my five+ years at St Pauls Maternity looking after all the Mums and Babies

    By Hilary (27/03/2022)
  • I was also born here in 1957! My dad also worked here as a nurse. He used to tell me that the surgeon that delivered me died playing tennis with Dan Maskell, the tennis commentator!! I never knew if he was pulling my leg!! We lived on Fletcher’s Way and moved away when I was around 5 years old. I couldn’t believe all the changes, (and the amount of cars), when I came back many many years later.

    By Roger Andrews (02/02/2022)
  • I worked as a nursery nurse with the newborns from August 1958- July 1959.

    I loved my time there – Sisters were very strict – Sister Good was a tall, forbidding looking person but an excellent midwife and very kind. I helped to look after the newborns including premature babies, all of whom survived despite the lack of high tec equipment! We bathed the babies every morning and mothers were shown how to bathe them the day before their discharge. This was the only time we saw the mothers unless the babies were unwell and they came down to the nursery.

    Babies were brought straight down to the nursery after delivery and we gave them their first bath.

    So glad I had the experience of working there.

    By Valerie Trafford née Poynter (12/01/2022)
  • I worked as a nursery nurse at St. Paul’s from August 1958 – July 1959 when I left to do my nurses training. Have very fond memories of my time there – Sisters were strict and very efficient.

    There was a small unit for premature babies who seemed to survive though they had no resuscitation equipment etc…

    The nurses used to tap their heels if they stopped breathing and it seemed to do the trick! We did not lose one baby!

    Newborns were brought straight down to the nursery and we gave them their first bath and put in cots!

    They were taken up to mothers for feeding but yes, we did feed them at night. The only time we saw the mothers was when we gave them a ‘show bath’ before they took their babies home.

    Sad it’s gone but so glad I worked there.

    By Valerie Trafford (12/01/2022)
  • I was born in Saint Paul’s hospital in 1957.

    Mum had to stay in for a long time because her blood pressure was up.

    By Gail Wilson (07/12/2021)
  • I was born at St Pauls Hospital in October 1954 and my later schoolfriend was born a day earlier. Our mums’ beds were next to each other. I grew up in Hemel and remember the old hospital buildings very well.

    By Frances Kronenwett formerly Grigg (11/10/2019)
  • I too was born at St Pauls in November 1966. My Mother told me that I was delivered to this world by a large friendly woman of Afro-Caribbean lineage who made my Mother feel in very safe hands. My parents moved back to Scotland after a couple of years. I am disapointed to find that the hospital was demolished for I always intended to return one day to the place of my birth.

    By Andrew Dunlop (06/02/2018)
  • I was born in St Pauls during Feb 1962 and my brother followed during July 1964. Though we were only there for a few days before being brought up in London, then Dorset and Somerset before I moved to East London for 20+ years, I returned to Hemel to live in Sept 2004 and am still here whilst my brother is also in Herts ( East Barnet ) !

    By Chris Hall (09/09/2017)
  • I found this interesting. I was born there in 1974 and I am putting a documentary together of my life so far…starting of course at the hospital.

    By Neil (03/05/2017)
  • Fascinating to read this. I myself was born at St. Paul’s during the snowy winter of 62/63. My family moved away from Hemel when I was 3 years old and I have never been back. My Mother sadly passed away some years ago but I do remember her telling of snowy hills, open windows and ferocious sisters. Thank you so much for sharing these memories.

    By Rob Notman (06/11/2015)
  • I found this interesting, as not only was I born in St Pauls, but my mother worked there as a radiographer for a number of years.  She used to take me and my brother (also born there) to work with her, and let us play in the darkroom while going about her tasks – I still have memories of this.  She quit to take care of her growing family when I reached primary school age.

    By Rod Parkes (28/07/2015)