PHOTOGRAPHED to illustrate the site of the Keighley War Hospital between 1916 and 1919, this view shows the then rural nature of Morton Banks.
Run by a Keighley and Bingley Joint Hospital Board, having opened in 1893 as a fever hospital with 20 beds, this site “on the sunny slopes of Rumbalds Moor on the left bank of the River Aire” was ideally suited to its purpose.
In 1916 the hospital was offered to the War Office, “with all its equipment” and room for expansion. Wartime demands were to drive up its accommodation to 746 beds.
The angle of the photograph has obscured the comparative openness of the location. Despite new buildings of wood and asbestos, there was space for “asphalted winding paths, flanked by evergreens, flowery bowers and shady seats”. The ends of J Ward and N Ward were over a quarter of a mile apart!
The hospital grounds ran down to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, where there was a boathouse and landing stage.
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