Hospitals and the Great War

I've just completed a database of all the UK military hospitals that were operating in 1917 - details taken from a document held at The National Archives. In total there are 2,469 on the list, and individual units varied in size from just two beds to more than three thousand. They were opened in schools and colleges, church halls and village halls, barracks, asylums and working men's clubs, private houses, manor houses, rectories, castles ... the variety is endless. Among the buildings used were some of Britain's great houses and stately homes; many no longer exist, demolished to make way for modern housing and business parks, but often their past glory remains to be seen in contemporary photographs. The fact that so many buildings were used as wartime hospitals was a unique event, and could never happen again. To wander through their past and their stories is the most enjoyable of pastimes.