Waddon Fever Hospital

Your comment on the Waddon Hospital brought back memories. I too was there at aged 5 in 1949 with scarlet fever. I thought it was called the "isolation" hospital. I was there for 5 weeks and could only see my parents through a window all that time. I also remember that I had my favourite bear with me but he had to be left behind. I was in a children's ward but I don't remember much about the food. I lived over Wallington Fire Station at that time, BUT was born in Farnham and lived in Broomleaf Road in 1944, but lived in Reigate, before emigrating to Canada in 1967. I now live in Montreal, but have been back to the Croydon/Waddon area many times and wondered where the building was. Thank you for the update.

I of course remember Purley Way, and always spent much of the summer holidays there. Those diving boards were so high! I believe it is a garden/leisure centre now.

Thank you for the memories.

Hi Anne and Wendy,
I have read your very touching accounts of what was a traumatic time in your lives when you were rushed to the Waddon Isolation |Hospital, otherwise Known as Croydon Borough Hospital. The parallels with what is going on now in your accounts and others I have read in my research on the hospital are telling.
The very isolated location of the hospital was on purpose due to its nature of treating infectious diseases (and then later wider conditions) and there must have been a stigma attached to it as a result. Indeed it was hard yo get to with a private road and no public transport.
This is why I think that there are few photos of it and the resulting mystery, has made its real location misreported over the years.

I am interested because I live in a flat right at the location of the hospital. (the actual location of which was north / north-west of Ikea / Valley Park...)
It closed in 1984 (after various reorganisations within the NHS and the land was sold for domestic redevelopment . I have more details on how the hospital operated and what they dealt with over the years. Ironically, both of my parents were doctors since WWII and the start of the NHS in 1948, up to the 1980s though not in Croydon.

The location of Ikea, was of course Croydon B power station and the aerial photos of the construction of that show the hospital, from many different angles, in its rural surroundings - to the north / north-west .https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/eaw026589
Since then Ampere Way and Valley Park have changed the geography, but where the hospital was is in part the Valley Park (3) housing Associations' flats and beyond that over a small hill 'Cherry Trees' private development of houses & flats in Franklin Way / Kelvin Gardens (all the local roads being named after electricity pioneers due to the power stations, rather than the hospital.

The NHS retained a piece of land in between the housing estates and in 2005 built & opened a Healthy Living Centre (how ironic?) in the space. I was on the local residents' steering committee and I named it The Peppermint Centre after the local peppermint (& Lavender) perfume & medicinal farms historically nearby. There is a medical centre and a (formerly) Sure Start nursery and community rooms with a meeting hall.
In the 20 years I have lived here I knew something of the existence of the hospital but, as explained, confusion of its name and location made research hard.
There is a small green with original mature trees, from the days of the hospital, in Cherry Trees; (The developers from 1992-2000, Balfour Beatty & latterly Westbury Homes) called it this and we kept the name. There is a plaque from the council on a house nearest the green launching the housing but not mentioning the hospital.

You both would be welcome to visit and I could show you round the location & the Peppermint Healthy Living Centre (the overall location is all opposite Therapia Lane Tramstop and near Ampere Way Tramstop) and it is generally a peaceful and tranquil place.

Best wishes to you both and all who worked at, were patients of or visited the Croydon Borough / Waddon / Isolation Hospital over the years.

Further to my comments above on the location - which is now Cherry Trees estate where I live: WE come out of our own isolation each Thursday to clap the NHS (and other frontline workers) - I am more mindful of the area's medical history and the stories here and elsewhere I have researched, show quite how those were pioneering days in dealing with pandemics with dignity in difficult circumstances.
Desmond.

The thing I learnt about isolation in 2020 was that going and waving to someone is an act of love. I was in Waddon Isolation Hospital - as I knew it - in 1964 initially in a single room with a huge window looking onto the corridor. There was a bed and a bedside table. The walls were plain - no pictures and no toys. The food was like gruel - I had dysentery so I didn't have normal food. I was sick one day and got a telling off from the nurse who said "Why didn't you call me, I was only in the next room". She could have been on Mars for all I knew - cos I only saw nurses and doctors to attend to my needs I didn't really understand where they were. One day they moved me to a room with another little girl and then the nurses and doctors changed shifts. My parents arrived at the hospital and couldn't find me and know one knew where I was. I cried on my bed for the hours it took them to find me, thinking I'd been left there. I got reinfected and back into a room on my own. Every time I got a bit better they moved me in with another child and I got re-infected. My mother was heavily pregnant and struggling to cope with the situation. My father removed me from hospital against doctor's orders and I went to live in my grandmother's front room and was attended by our own GP. My mum had the baby and they visited every day and waved through the window. I thought they'd got rid of me to make room for the new baby. 2020 was a real surprise as I suddenly understood waving through a window was a big act of love.. It must have been horrendous for my mum. While I was there my grandfather had a heart attack and I was told I had to keep very quiet or they'd send me away. I thought they went back to the hospital and only talked when I had to for a few years after. Isolation leaves it's mark. I was 4 years old.

desfitsgeraldpr - very interesting to read how difficult it was to get to the hospital and the confusion over the name. I don't remember the nurses ever spending time with me - probably too scared of catching the disease!!!