Wolverhampton Royal Infirmary.

Wolverhampton Royal Hospital was funded and built by a group of Victorian philanthropic businessmen in Wolverhampton and built on land purchased from the Duke of Cleveland, at a cost of £18,000, this would include the cost to build the hospital as well.

The Royal opened its doors in January Ist 1849 and then consisted of 84 beds and relied solely on charity to keep it running

By the turn of the century, the hospital was recognised for training doctors and nurses and had established a pathological laboratory (albeit in a shed), a steam laundry, medical library, hospital chaplaincy, electricity and a new kitchen.

By the year 1912 the hospital had developed a 53 bed nurses home, a new wing of beds dedicated to King Edward VII, its own motorised ambulance provided by Wolverhampton Police Force, an electric lift and a new laboratory.

During WWI its facilities where used to treat wounded soldiers returning from France, by the thirties it aquired the reputation of one of the best provincial non-teaching hospitals in the country.

Again in WWII it was used to treat wounded soldiers and in 1948 it was handed over to the NHS with its books in the black and having been developed and run for 100 years on the charity.

From war time onwards the hospital grew as did its reputation for excellence with many new wings being added as well as a swimming pool amongst others.

Sadly though the NHS deemed it inadequote towards the late nineties and began transferring it facilities to New Cross Hospital a site which occupies 60 acres.

The Royal Hospital closed on Tuesday 24th June 1997 after more than 148 years of care and dedication to the citizens of Wolverhampton, thus ending a centre of excellence in the epicentre of Wolverhampton Millennium City.

Since its closure it has been vandalized, stripped by copper thieves and fell victim to numerous arson attacks, it now sits in a sad state of disrepair rotting from the inside out.

The sad thing is the exterior of the building is stunning and rather imposing, just a shame really that another iconic building has been left to rot.

The highlight of the trip though was finding the records room filled with casts of peoples teeth as well as some old records books of previous patients.

We spent a good few hours in here and although not being a big fan of places like these I must say I enjoyed it.