Troubled times for former workhouse and hospital

Nearly 21 years after it was closed down, Hales Hospital is still standing empty and forlorn, despite plans for its conversion into 44 residential units. On a grey January day, the former home in the village of Hales, near Loddon, last occupied by people with learning difficulties, bears all the signs of desolation.

Its future may become clearer next month when the existing planning permission for redevelopment expires. South Norfolk District Council, to which the original application was made in May, 2003, has no positive information about the private owner's intentions, but if he intends to continue with his plans he will have to submit a new application. Until the building's future is secured, that is, until it is saved from decay and given a new lease of life, it will remain on Norfolk County Council's Register of Buildings at Risk.

The Grade II listed building – altered, refurbished and improved over the decades – started life as a workhouse in 1765. Known as Heckingham House of Industry, it was built 'for the better relief and employment of the poor of the hundreds of Loddon and Clavering'. Its opening was part of a national effort to provide an institutional solution to the increasing problems of poverty, infirmity and unemployment.

In its final decades, the workhouse became a refuge for vagrants until it closed in 1927. Six years later Norfolk County Council bought it for use as accommodation for 120 female and 56 male patients, in compliance with the Mental Deficiency Act of 1927 which required institutional care for 'mental defectives'. For the next 20 years it was known as the Heckingham Institution, changing its name in 1953 to Hales Hospital until it finally closed in 1990.

For the full story about the former workhouse and hospital's turbulent history, and information about other well-known buildings classed as being at risk, see the EDP Sunday supplement in this Saturday's EDP.