From the West End to Camberwell: a history of King’s College Hospital

If you see a little old woman lurking around Denmark Hill looking up to the sky instead of looking where she's going that'll be me. I've yet to see the air ambulance land on King's College Hospital's helipad.

I'm not an ambulance chaser, I'm an air ambulance chaser. But though I've yet to witness it, the hospital marked its 2,000th <a href="https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=65b8675cb353c26d&cs=0&sxsrf=AE3TifM9lywIz35RX85z2T7TSv94cmA25Q%253A1756638797212&q=helipad+landing&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwij6O679bSPAxWaYEEAHRMgDVgQxccNegQIBBAB&mstk=AUtExfCNqY5eNGVU7r0BQWPzMDgThUqLLPlDDk1oFPm-mJqNn9gwrV1--lYmnzglQkk3mQb93EwqnvLsLA25EsZUzQt7qY82Dq6V6UtDCU0wuFjoNcvhyCKdHHk9egxNuvt8veKpb2_4knGP0G6r4lhumvKwnvi5KElkoW164hOy82VAAR4&csui=3" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">helipad landing in May 2025.

https://southwarknews.co.uk/area/camberwell/denmark-hill-hospital-helipad-has-become-one-of-uks-busiest/

King's is a Designated Major Trauma Centre, dealing with all sorts of scary road accidents, stabbings and major incidents. My brother is an Operating Department Practitioner there and sees all this blood and gore first-hand which is heroic, yet hearing the edited highlights over Sunday afternoon tea is rather challenging... Fear not dear reader, this short history of King's is devoid of all guts and brain tissue – and the red stuff is kept to a minimum.

The first King's College Hospital was located in the West End, but over the years the population dwindled and it started taking cases from what was then the suburbs of Camberwell, Brixton and Peckham. It made sense to bring the hospital nearer to its patients and so, in 1913, every scalpel, sick bowl and needle was carted across the water to Denmark Hill.

Denmark Hill hospital on left, circa 1930. Out of copyright.

In 1903, William Frederick Danvers Smith (later Lord Hambleden) bought 12 acres of land in Denmark Hill and presented it to the hospital.

He was the son of William Henry Smith (1825-1891), of WH Smith book shop fame. William Jnr and his wife were great supporters of the hospital and in his lifetime he donated £200,000, along with his time and business expertise.

The third Lord Hambleden (1903-1948) also got involved, but more with the staff's wellbeing. He arranged concerts during the Blitz when the medics had to stay within the hospital. At other times, whenever an employee of WH Smith was a patient he visited them, bringing books and magazines. What a great family. There is a whole wing named after them, and justly so.

The building was state of the art at the time of its inception. Some parts had rounded wall, ceiling and floor junctions to prevent dust from gathering in corners. Power for the lighting was supplied by diesel engines, which must have been rather noisy and smelly. But they were in constant use until 1955. Modern design ideas included plenty of ventilation, electric clocks and an internal telephone exchange. At the time there were six-hundred beds.

There was a large Out-Patients Department which could accommodate five-hundred people. It had a permanent refreshment counter in the centre, which would be useful today with the four hour wait!

Besides an X-ray department there was a Bathing Department. No, this wasn't for the unwashed but for various medical treatments. The Children's Department had a separate entrance for patients with whooping cough.

To inspect all this modernity and to officially open the new King's College Hospital, King George V and Queen Mary arrived to much fanfare, flag waving and cheering, on 26th July, 1913. People lined the streets from the Elephant & Castle, down Walworth Road and up to the hospital gates. It was a great, positive and happy day.

King's College - George V visit. Out of copyright.

Sadly, only a few people could appreciate their new hospital before World War One broke out, almost to the day a year later. A large part of the hospital was requisitioned by the War Office to create the 4th London General Hospital, a facility to treat military casualties.

As the conflict took hold, injured soldiers were conveyed from France and filled up the wards to such an extent that Ruskin Park was used, with huts and tents covering it. A wooden bridge was built across the railway line to enable injured men to be rushed over to the hospital. In fact, this echoes the practice of stretchering patients from the helipad today, where a curved rail transports them down into the waiting arms of NHS professionals.

During World War Two, the Hospital became a sort of large triage for air raid victims. The operating theatres and patients in the higher wards were moved to the basement during bombing raids. Despite being on top of a hill, it only took one hit from a small bomb while all around whole streets were taken out by enemy. It must have some kind of magical protection bubble around it.

https://southwarknews.co.uk/history/history-plus/death-destruction-survival-and-spirit-the-blitz-in-bermondsey-and-rotherhithe/

The helicopter lands on top of the 10-storey Ruskin Wing and opened in 2016. Before that, landings were carried out in Ruskin Park. All this was made possible by a multi-million-pound donation from the County Air Ambulance HELP Appeal. In addition, more than 2,600 patients, staff, and members of the local community generously donated £500,000 to the Trust’s Time is Life Appeal.

King's is now a world leader for its expertise in areas like diabetes, liver disease, sickle cell, stroke and blood cancer.

It carried out the first bone marrow transplant and established the world's first voluntary blood donor service.

The helipad is one of only three in London and saves countless lives every year. It has a trauma population of 4.5 million people across south east London and Kent.