The Cottage Hospital was built in 1869 on Welsh Walls, Oswestry and opened the following year. It replaced a previous small hospital at Herbert Villas on Castle Street. A second building, for extra staff and isolation patients, was added in 1895.
The Cottage Hospital was a fourteen bed civilian hospital used for treating inpatients and to provide an out-patient service. It was the base of Oswestry’s first district nurse team and was mainly used by patients who did not meet the criteria to be admitted to the Salop Infirmary in Shrewsbury.
During the War the hospital began taking in wounded soldiers in addition to civilian patients and began to struggle as the numbers increased. It was funded by money raised at an annual ball but this was cancelled when War broke out. An appeal was launched and enough money was raised to rescue the hospital
An additional service in the town was the Oswestry Provident Dispensary, Victoria Street for a small weekly payment treated out-patients.
The Cottage Hospital closed in 1948. It was later used as a boarding school before being turned into apartments.
Here are some of women who worked at the hospital:
Gladys M Davies, Beatrice Edwards, Margaret Edwards, Sarah Jane Evans, Winifred Gears, Eleanor Mason, Elizabeth Margaret Williams, Annie Beatrice Wilson.