Royal Naval Hospital, Stonehouse

The Royal Naval Hospital, Stonehouse was a medical facility for naval officers and other ranks at Stonehouse, Plymouth.

History
The naval hospital was built in 1758–65 to a design by Alexander Rowehead. The hospital housed 1,200 patients in sixty wards, its ten ward blocks being arranged around a courtyard with a central block containing the chapel, dispensary and staff housing. The design was influential in its time: its pattern of detached wards (arranged so as to minimise spread of infection) foreshadows the 'pavilion' style of hospital building which was popularised by Florence Nightingale a century later. Patients were landed directly from Stonehouse Creek (now playing fields). The hospital closed in 1995; it is now a gated residential complex called Millfields.