Tooting Bec Hospital closed in 1994. It was demolished and redeveloped as The Heritage Park estate on the edge of Tooting Common. In the 91 years it was open, thousands of patients and staff passed through it’s doors. Many of the patients died there rathe than moving back to be with their families or to the Workhouse or to another asylum.
How should this hospital be marked or remembered? What was life like there for patients and staff?
Come and hear Philip Bradley and Liz Sayce talk about the history of Tooting Bec Hospital at The Woodfield Pavilion, Tooting Bec Common, SW16 1AP on Saturday 1st June at 11am.
This event is part of The Heritage Day organised by the Woodfield Pavilion and is also part of the 2024 Wandsworth Heritage Festival. Further details here.
The London Borough of Wandsworth doesn’t have a local museum. But it does have a collection of 10,000 + items in a basement on West Hill, most of which have been there since March 2008. There have been Wandsworth Museums in the past and this walk on Friday May 26th will be passing some of those sites. Beginning at Putney Library, Disraeli Road, we will be going down to West Hill, onto the former Young’s brewery site and Wandsworth Town Hall and finishing at the old Court House building in Garratt Lane.
More information about the Wandsworth Museum Action Group here
More information about the Wandsworth Heritage Festival here
The SW12/SW17 Neighbourhood Network published a delightful walking trail from Balham to Tooting a few years ago. The walk takes you from Balham Station to Tooting Bec Underground.
There is an accompanying soundtrack where you can hear memories and reminiscences of life in Balham and the characters who live and work there. They include comedian Arthur Smith, local shopkeepers and local residents.
You can download the whole recording from the link below.
Our last monthly meeting in March was an excellent talk by Roger Wates from the well-established Tooting firm E & A Wates. He has just sent me news on what the company is doing during lockdown, which is quite amazing.
NHS staff wearing the reusable visors during COVID-19, April 2020. Visors have been delivered to 21 hospitals including St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. Photo reproduced with permission.
In its 120th year, SW London interior specialist E & A Wates has switched their workshop furniture restoration work from high quality reupholstery to critical personal protective equipment (PPE).
E & A Wates showroom and workshop are temporarily closed in response to Coronavirus (COVID-19). This week, with teams working at a safe distance behind the scenes, E & A Wates have supplied and cut foam to assist in making over 4,300 visors for NHS frontline staff within 21 hospitals in London and neighbouring counties with potential for another 2,500 components if required.
The visors are being made in conjunction with a prop maker Faye Jones and over 60 colleagues who crowdsourced the project so the visors can be donated to NHS hospital staff, the visors can be sterilised and reused after each shift. So far the group have made 6650 visors with 3200 planned for production this Easter weekend
We have received details of the following event at St George’s Hospital archives this coming Thursday:
Come along to our Explore Your
Archives event for a chance to learn about our Wellcome Trust funded project
‘Opening Up the Body: the Post Mortem Case Books of St George’s Hospital
(1841-1946)’. This event will explore the post mortem examinations and
case books alongside other related materials held in the Archives & Special
Collections at St George’s, University of London.
Two sessions are available on
Thursday 28th November:
13:30 – 14:15 pm
14:45 – 15:30 pm
The event will be hosted at St
George’s, University of London. Booking is essential via archives@sgul.ac.uk
Tooting History Group 