The Metropolitan Convalescent Hospital, Walton-on-Thames.
Extensive descriptive text on the same sheet starts with a consideration of "that state of general weakness usually termed convalescence, which, though short of actual disease, equally with disease incapacitates for labour". The labouring poor can resort to hospitals and dispensaries when sick, but not when recovering from sickness. Hence the need for this "refuge for the convalescent poor", described as the only one of its kind in existence. It was formed in 1840 from the old Carshalton workhouse. Having increased in size, it was in 1854 "about to occupy a noble asylum, just erected, at Walton-on-Thames", on five acres of ground at Oatlands Park given by the Earl of Ellesmere. The architect was Joseph Clarke F.S.A. of Stratford Place, Oxford Street. The rooms are designed with a view to "the recovery of the poor inmates, who, very soon, with the good living and the fine air they enjoy, are restored to robust health and fit for their daily toil"
