St Clement's Hospital

St Clement's Hospital in Mile End Road, London, has had a long and chequered history. It started life as the Bow Workhouse, built by the City of London Poor Law Union in 1849 to accommodate 1200 "paupers". The main building was H-shaped, with men on the east side, and women on the west. The palatial design of the new workhouse cost over £55,000 to construct. It boasted central heating, a huge dining hall, Siberian marble pillars, and a chapel with stained glass windows and a new organ. However, the new workhouse had room only for the sick and helpless - healthy applicants were refused admittance. In 1874 it became the Union's Infirmary where mental patients came for examination. In 1930 the Poor Law Unions were abolished and it was taken over as a hospital by London County Council. Parts of the building were lost in a fire in 1935 and it was bombed during the Second World War. It was taken into the National Health Service in 1948, became a psychiatric unit then a mental health unit. It was closed in 2005 when the facilities transferred to a newly built hospital.

On the 12th July 2012, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, formally announced that the derelict site of St Clement's Hospital would become the UK's first ever urban Community Land Trust - a type of community owned housing development. The event marked the culmination of an 8 year campaign by local residents, who are now working with a developer to help restore the historic landmark, and use it to pioneer the capital's first ever "permanently affordable" homes.

My camera club, the City of London & Cripplegate Photographic Society, was invited to document the current state of the building as part of the public consultation in November. A selection of the photos, all of which are on our Flickr site, will be shown in a "pop-up" exhibition in a local cinema from today for the whole of March. My photo of the front door was chosen for the poster, which I was asked to design. So I am proud to blip it here! If you happen to be going to the cinema in Whitechapel in March, please look at the photos!