cane hill | walking the perimeter
29|04|02

This ward looks slightly different than the others. A nice variation on Cane Hill’s classic Victorian styling, but an original ward. Meet Shaftesbury/Salter.

A dull modern single-storey building blocks the rest of the view. This is only interesting as they built a kink into it. Why not build it straight?

However, it's been identified:

"[This is] Occupational Therapy (though there is also a room in the hospital called this which has a really odd contraption like a tricycle but bolted to the floor, but that is another story). We took a lightbulb from a fitting outside it and it still worked for a while, which was cool."

This building is also called The John Hutchinson Centre.


2009: This is a rare shot of the eastern facing side of Male Ward "D" which shows how it shared red tiling with Female Ward "H" and Female Ward "K". It was originally thought only the 1888 extensions shared this detail; the reason for the embellishment is still unknown.

Again, this ward was mostly ignored by urban explorers. When I returned in 2008, demolition rubble piled around the Male Wards made getting around difficult; and the demolition workers were all clustered in their new offices in the former John Hutchinson Centre. So, we moved to the more-intact Female Wards, and carried out a thorough photographic survey there.

Luckily Marlon visited most of the Male Wards during a trip in 2007, so some pictures of the interiors of this part of the hospital have survived.


View west towards the end of Shaftesbury/Salter ward towering over the John Hutchinson Centre. © Simon Cornwell 2002