Demolishing a building to replace it with a more modern, cost-efficient, energy-saving structure is not a new thing, as this look back at Sheffield’s long, lost hospitals demonstrates. 

Although most people are used to the same hospitals having been there for decades, an article in The Star has revealed there were once many more medical buildings in the South Yorkshire city than residents might not be aware of. 

Some of these have been turned into flats, making use of the land to accommodate the city’s growing population over the years. 

Lodge Moor Hospital, for instance, is now a housing development, while the King Edward VII Hospital Rivelin, which closed in 1992, is home to residential apartments. 

Some of the hospitals that no longer exist date back many years, such as The Royal Infirmary, which opened in 1797. It served Sheffield’s public for nearly 200 years before it closed in 1980. 

Fir Vale Infirmary is also an important part of Sheffield’s history, having opened in 1876. The former City General Hospital, which is now recognised as the Northern General, looked after people throughout both World Wars. 

The Royal Hospital in West Street also saw a lot of war casualties due to the Sheffield blitz in the Second World War. 

This medical unit actually started off as the Sheffield Dispensary before it was transformed into one of the most important hospitals in the city. 

It was eventually demolished in 1981, and now most people know the building where it once stood as the Royal Plaza Apartments, showing just how much a street can be altered simply by changing the purpose of a building. 

Nether Edge Hospital Maternity Unity was another valuable centre in Sheffield, and was even visited by the Duchess of Kent in 1969. Unfortunately, it closed 33 years ago in January 1991. 

Similarly, the Winter Street Hospital, which opened in 1881, lasted almost 100 years as an important healthcare unit in Sheffield before it was closed in 1976. 

Many of these structures, including Middlewood Hospital, which was still standing in 1975, might be remembered by lots of people still living in the city. However, those in their 20s and 30s might not realise that the area they walk through every day on their way to work used to look very different to how it does today. 

They might, however, still recall the Crimicar Lane Isolation Hospital and the Former Jessop Hospital, as they were both still there in the early 2000s. 

Crimicar Lane Isolation unit played a very important part during its lifetime, as it was where people with smallpox, silicosis, and tuberculosis were put to protect the rest of the public. By keeping them separated, it helped to reduce the spread of these fatal illnesses. 

It was also used during World War I to look after injured soldiers returning from the battlefield.

Thanks to successful vaccination programmes, there was no need for the hospital to remain open and patients who were still there were eventually transferred to Lodge Moor Hospital in 1956.

It remained empty after its closure for a long time before it was demolished and transformed into a housing development. 

Although Sheffield’s landscape has changed considerably over the last 100 years, with the demolition of many of its historically important hospitals, this has paved the way for new structures that help bring the city into the 21st Century.