An abandoned hospital and college that sits eerily empty has been captured on camera.
The former Ormskirk College and Ormskirk Cottage Hospital & Dispensary site on Hants Lane has been empty for years. The original occupant of the building was Ormskirk Dispensary, set up on Hants Lane in 1797 by a local doctor called Joseph Brandreth.
The Dispensary and Cottage Hospital opened in 1896 before an extension was built in 1928. At this point, it was known as the Ormskirk General Hospital and Dispensary.
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The premises were also used as a military hospital for wounded soldiers who returned at the end of the First World War, reports LancsLive. Among the injured soldiers convalescing there was Private Benjamin Crompton, of Wigan Road, Ormskirk, who underwent six operations and had been through ten different hospitals before arriving in Ormskirk with shrapnel still embedded in his body.
Local historian Dot Broady-Hawkes notes: “Finally, Royal Army Medical Corps surgeon Major Thomas Caldwell Littler Jones of Liverpool was able to successfully remove the shrapnel fragments that were causing so many problems and Benjamin was able to return home.”
Among those to have worked on the wards during the war was brave Scottish matron Lizzie Violet Macbeth Robertson, in charge, along with her sister Lillian who was a nurse there. In recognition of her bravery and dedication at the temporary military hospital based in Ormskirk, Lizzie received the Royal Red Cross 2nd class in August 1919, and was listed in the London Gazette by the Secretary of State for War.
The building was absorbed by the NHS in 1948. Just 42 years later, the Hants Lane site was to close the doors as a medical facility around 1990, according to the National Archives. It briefly served as a site for the former Ormskirk College - now West Lancashire College, based in Skelmersdale, and subsequently lay empty.
The deserted spot fell into disrepair, facing threats of vandalism and trespass as well as needing 24 hour on site security to deter anti-social behaviour. A planning application, submitted in 2019 to demolish the former college and replace it with a purpose built employment space, was withdrawn.
However, the site briefly stepped back into the spotlight during a time of national emergency when its car parks were used for the Covid-19 vaccination programme during the pandemic. Fresh proposals to turn the former college and learning centre into 55 flats were registered at West Lancashire Borough Council in October last year (2021), under plans which would also see an employment space and a pharmacy as possible options as well as elderly care facilities.
Heritage notes submitted with planning documents say: “Whilst unlisted, the building has some local value/ significance and is identified as being a "positive" building which contributes to the character and appearance of the Conservation Area.”
Now eerie images of the site which served as a one time military hospital, cottage hospital, dispensary and latter day college premises have been captured. Photographers based at urban explorer ‘Exploring with Jake,’ have shared their findings on social media, saying in a post of December 4: “In the mid-90s, the hospital closed and became the Ormskirk campus of West Lancashire College, who moved out a few years ago leaving the site vacant.”
Rarely seen glimpses of the abandoned premises show murals on the children's ward, dark corridors, faded grandeur and falling plasterwork.
*Entering a privately owned property/site is considered trespassing which is a civil matter in the UK.
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