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St Nicholas’ Hospital in Gosforth was a big county asylum with up to 900 patients. But during the World War One it was turned over to military use under the Asylum War Hospitals Scheme conceived in January 1915.

Staff were given just weeks to move many hundreds of patients, some of whom had been at the hospital for many years and had serious psychiatric illnesses. They were sent to asylums as far afield as Carlisle and York leading to overcrowding and an increase in the incidence of TB. Some were moved by ambulance but others were taken by cart.

St Nicholas was renamed Northumberland War Hospital and wounded soldiers were brought there by train.
It was not handed back until 1921 and it took about a year for the hospital to be converted back into a county asylum and for all patients to return.

Location: St Nicholas Hospital, Gosforth, Newcast-upon-Tyne, NE3 3XT
Image courtesy of Newcastle Libraries