Today it's called the Mulberry Centre. A red brick chimney and some walls. These are the remnants of the isolation hospital that opened in 1899 at the city boundary. Plans from 1908 show the main building consisted of a series of small one- and two-bedroomed wards (each with nurses' quarters and bedrooms attached), a laundry and a washroom. Presumably, it is the laundry that remains - together with the chimney that once serviced it.
The 1910 map shows there was also an administration block and then four separate pavilion wards in the grounds beyond a wall. Maybe some diseases were considered to be more infectious than others. Altogether, it could take forty-six patients. It was built to accommodate and treat patients with certain notifiable infectious diseases: scarlet fever, diphtheria, and typhoid.
There is little of this left now. In 1947 the isolation hospital was closed, and patients transferred to other hospitals, including, eventually, the City Hospital in Hoole. In return, elderly people from the City Hospital were transferred here. Today, it is the Mulberry Centre - a day centre for adults with severe learning difficulties. A circular driveway leads to a barred gate, making it difficult to see anything very much: but there is the chimney and one of the one-storeyed wards with vents where the windows used to be. An old wall surrounds what used to be the hospital garden and includes the Park West Employment Park - the botanical theme extended to include five separate offices named after trees: Elder, Maple, Poplar, Willow and Beech. From March 2012, Beech House, one of the larger buildings, has been the home of the Chester Chronicle.
