St James' Hospital, Portsmouth

The hospital, which was designed by George Rake in the Gothic Revival style using a dual pavilion layout, opened as the Portsmouth Borough Asylum in September 1879.[2] A sanatorium for the treatment of infectious diseases was completed in 1879 and the wards were extended in 1895.[2] Four detached villas, designed by Albert Cogswell, were added in 1908.[2] It became the Borough of Portsmouth Mental Hospital in 1914 and was requisitioned for military use during the First World War.[2] After service as an Emergency Medical Service facility during the Second World War, it joined the National Health Service as St James' Hospital in 1948.[3]

After the introduction of Care in the Community in the early 1980s, the hospital went into a period of decline and inpatient services significantly reduced.[2] The land to the south of the hospital was registered as Portsmouth's first town green in 2001.[4] By summer 2018, Solent NHS Trust only retained a small area of the site for mental health services.[5] The site as a whole was marketed for redevelopment and sold to a property developer in January 2019.[6]