NorthWest Exploration Forum - Cookridge Hospital, Leeds, 2010

Did this place wayyy at the begining of 2010 I belive most of the site is demolished now but some buildings remain. Was a great location with the power on and I wish I had more than just two visits but its a hell of a distance for me to travel!

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THE end of an era in healthcare in Yorkshire has been marked with closure of one of the region's best-known hospitals.
Cancer patient Freda Burgess, 80, of Baildon, near Bradford, was the last patient to be cared for with a course of radiotherapy at Cookridge Hospital in Leeds which first opened its doors for treatment in 1869.

It has specialised in the treatment of cancer patients from across large parts of the region since 1952 but now is being replaced with a £220m cancer centre at St James Hospital, which is one of the largest of its kind in Europe, with 1,600 staff.

Cookridge Convalescent Hospital was opened in 1869 to provide a place for patients who had been treated at Leeds General Infirmary to continue their recovery.

The site was chosen in the then-remote district of Cookridge "where patients could be cheered up among the bracken and pure air", as a contemporary report noted.

Patients paid for their own care if they could afford it but there were free places available thanks to donations from benefactors – three weeks convalescence cost around eight shillings a week.

People cared for at Cookridge had to conform to a list of rules – not changed until 1934 – including "to be obedient to Matron and to perform all such services in the house and grounds as she may appoint".

Over the years the convalescent hospital was gradually extended, and during the First World War the building was requisitioned to care for wounded servicemen, resuming its civilian role after 1919.

In 1939 it was again taken over by the Government and briefly housed the Leeds Maternity Hospital.

Experiments using radium against cancer started on a small scale in Leeds as early as 1929 but Cookridge did not concentrate on cancer for another 20 years when it was acquired by the Leeds Regional Hospital Board.

Officials quickly recommended it should be developed as a regional radiotherapy centre harnessing the latest technology – a plan which required considerable adaptation of the original convalescent hospital plus a number of new buildings which were constructed on the site during the 1950s and 1960s.

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The 20-acre Cookridge site is expected to sell for £13m amid plans to build more than 250 houses on about half the area, which includes three Victorian and Edwardian listed properties. Landscaped areas including Ireland Wood will remain untouched.