BEFORE the establishment of the NHS in 1948, the provision of health care was initially associated with monasteries.

In Abingdon, St John's Hospital was originally a lay infirmary outside the abbey gate, but after the dissolution it was reduced to the status of an almshouse. It was common for almshouses to be styled ‘hospitals’ but any medical care and nursing was quite rudimentary.

In the 17th century the local charity Christ's Hospital of Abingdon employed Joan Daniel and Robert Adshead to nurse and cure the sick poor.

It was not until the 18th century that modern medical hospitals were established.

The Borough Corporation and the Governors of Christ’s Hospital both subscribed to Oxford’s first hospital, the Radcliffe Infirmary, which opened in 1770.

Christ’s Hospital was bound in 1859 to establish a dispensary to provide medicine and advice for those unable to pay.

The practice of medicine had become more professional in the 19th century; the dispensary staffed by a consulting physician, a consulting surgeon and a dispenser. It opened in 1861 opposite the Kings Head and Bell, later moving to larger premises at 33 West St Helen Street.

By 1883 a committee of local dignitaries was formed to promote a cottage hospital in Abingdon.

The foundation stone was laid in August 1885 at a site in Bath Street, once known as China Alley, and today occupied by Mercers’ Court.

On the day of the ceremony the streets were festooned with flags; half-day closing was the order of the day for shops and businesses.

The opening of the Cottage Hospital in 1886 brought the demise of the dispensary while benefitting from the £100 subscription it had formerly received.

Subscriptions and voluntary contributions were literally the life-blood of hospitals at that time.

In 1892 the town’s medical officer of health, Dr Woodforde, presented a report recommending the provision of an isolation hospital and an apparatus to disinfect infected clothing.

Approval was given five years later and the Abingdon Joint Hospital for Infectious Diseases was built outside town in Marcham Road.

In 1914 a sanatorium for the treatment of tuberculosis was constructed there.

During the First World War the Red Cross operated a temporary auxiliary hospital at a large house in Marcham Road.

Known as Tesdale House, the hospital treated more than one thousand wounded soldiers between the March 1915 and February 1918.

Nearby the large private house known as Brooklands served as a temporary maternity hospital during the Second World War.

Wartime experience revealed the shortcomings of the Cottage Hospital. A search for new premises led to the purchase of a large house in the Radley Road, The Warren, a former home of Sir George Dashwood.

The purchase and conversion cost £9,000, producing a modern hospital accommodating 27 patients, a children's ward with four beds, a separate operating theatre and X-ray machine.

The management committee were certain that one thousand annual subscribers could be achieved to guarantee the hospital's income.

The new hospital changed the organisation of nursing locally, by providing accommodation for the two district nurses.

District nursing associations allowed the less wealthy to subscribe a small sum annually to enable them to receive medical care from the district nurse. These ‘provident’ schemes remained popular until the creation of the welfare state.

The Warren, familiar to generations of Abingdonians as the town's maternity hospital until 1968, was demolished in 1982 to make way for the small housing development which bears its name.

Maternity services were moved to the hospital on the Marcham Road before being centralised in Oxford.

The town's remaining hospital is Abingdon Community Hospital.