A nurse holds a small firework to celebrate 1949’s Guy Fawkes Night at Trimmer’s Hospital in Farnham – no doubt igniting the spirit of the NHS, born just a year earlier.

Trimmers Hospital originally stood on the site of what is now Crundwell Court in East Street, Farnham. This was a cottage hospital which opened in November 1894.

However, by 1930 the hospital had outgrown the premises and Trimmers moved to a new building in Menin Way. That subsequently became the Phyllis Tuckwell Memorial Hospice in 1979.

A horse-drawn ambulance outside the first Trimmer's Cottage Hospital in East Street, Farnham. Date unknown.
A horse-drawn ambulance outside the first Trimmer's Cottage Hospital in East Street, Farnham. Date unknown. (Herald Archive)

This building in Menin Way is now set to be demolished and replaced with a modern, fit-for-purpose hospice building on the same site. While Trimmer's former East Street building became the Red Cross centre for the town.

The Red Cross later built a hall behind the hospital to use as their Farnham centre and the old hospital was demolished in 1977, the land being sold for residential development.

However, there is one tiny part of the old hospital left. On the left of the below photograph you can just make out what we believe was the hospital laundry and stabling for the horse-drawn ambulance.

Trimmer's Hospital once stood in East Street, Farnham
Trimmer's Hospital once stood in East Street, Farnham (Herald Archive)

That building is still standing being in use as office accommodation I believe. It held the last fixed Red Cross facility in Farnham until quite recently as the medical equipment loan store for use by the public. Sadly that too has now gone.

These are two of many photos of those early days of the NHS in the Herald Archive – and with the National Health Service marking its 75th anniversary today, we'd love to hear readers’ memories of those early days...

Email your memories and photos to us at [email protected]