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Bourne once had three permanent hospitals but all have now gone. The Butterfield Hospital, closed in 1983, has been converted for use as a day care centre while St Peter's Hospital was run down and then shut in 1989. The building has since been demolished and the site is now being developed for extensions by the printing firm Warners Midlands plc. The third was Bourne Hospital in South Road, the biggest in the town that was closed in September 1998 despite a vigorous protest campaign by local people to save it. They raised a petition containing 8,000 names to keep it open but the battle was eventually lost and the premises have been standing empty ever since. The hospital started life in the early part of the 20th century when it was built in 1915 at a cost of £5,000 by Bourne Rural District Council as an isolation unit for patients with infectious diseases which were prevalent at the time, hence its location a mile outside town. A tuberculosis pavilion was later added and the hospital eventually specialised in chest infections, although a wide range of other services including casualty and out-patients, were also provided in recent years. When the hospital closed, the empty buildings began to deteriorate and the grounds became overgrown and neglected. The land was originally earmarked for light industrial development but South Kesteven District Council gave permission in 2002 for new homes on the four-acre site which was subsequently sold to a development company and an extensive residential estate is now being built on the site. For an illustrated history of Bourne Hospital see A Portrait of Bourne |
