THIS aerial view illustrates the extent of the former St John’s Hospital, Keighley.
Fell Lane curves across the top, with Holmwood Road branching off about the middle, while houses in Westburn Avenue appear in the bottom left-hand corner. The presence of bungalows towards the top suggests a date of about 1960.
This hospital was built originally to serve the Keighley Poor Law Union.
“Resolved,” a Board of Guardians’ minute of 1872 epitomises its solid mid-Victorian character, “that the Slaters of the New Infirmary supply no slate except Westmorland and North Lancashire Slate and that no other slate be accepted.”
As an Auxiliary War Hospital during the Great War it housed 185 servicemen’s beds and treated 1,052 military cases.
Eventually specialising in maternity and geriatric cases, St John’s closed down in 1970, when the last patients from its prestigious Special Maternity Unit were transferred to the new Airedale General Hospital.
It was demolished three years later. This entire site and the fields on its left are now occupied by housing, though allotments remain on the right.
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