Brooklands Convalescent Home.
The building, formerly The Lawn, was used in WW2 to house women from the Land Army.
It was opened as a Convalescent home in March 1952 by Mr & Mrs Triggs the principal and matron respectively.
It housed up to 30 patients mostly under the National Health Service direct from hospital whenever a doctor considered a period of convalescence desirable. The patients mostly came from the 200 hospitals in London and the Home Counties controlled by the London and North-East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board but also from as far away as Manchester, Derby and Torquay.
Local doctors could also recommend patients where they considered domestic circumstances justified it, and county councils could also can send patients for recuperative holidays but then the service were assessed by income and patients paid a small sum towards the cost.
There were around 500 patients a year, and by 1967 after 15 years about 7000 had stayed there with an average age between 50 - 60, the youngest was 16 and still studying for his ‘O’ levels, and the eldest, 89. A third of the patients had heart complaints and the rest were surgical cases. (With thanks to Richard Franklin for this information)
The home closed some time in the 1970s and became a private home more recently it was the residence of local MP Tony Newton later Lord Newton.
Photo Date: Probably summer 1952, the year the home opened.
Ref 51 19a