As part of a scheme to redevelop the hospital and its estate, Bennett & Son produced plans to clear the site bounded by Ashfield Street to the north, Philpot Street to the east, Varden Street to the south, and Turner Street to the west for a nurses’ residential quarter. Plans were produced for nine blocks set in landscaped gardens encircling Walden Street, conveniently located for the recently completed Princess Alexandra School of Nursing on the east side of Philpot Street and a proposed nurses’ recreation centre on the north side of Varden Street, later known as the Three Feathers Club. The blocks were intended to provide accommodation for approximately 1,000 nurses in bedsitting rooms and small flats, with communal dining rooms, television lounges and laundries. Planning permission for the scheme was granted in 1969, and demolition commenced swiftly. Only six blocks were completed and opened formally in 1976. Three blocks of flats in Ashfield Street, Philpot Street and Turner Street, varying in height from three to seven storeys, are faced with brown brick and have private balconies. Three blocks fronting Varden Street provided bedsitting rooms. The block in Ashfield Street, known as the James Hora Home, continues in hospital use as accommodation for outpatients and the relatives of critically ill patients, but the other nurses’ homes were sold to Cross Property Investments in 2012.1
Historic England Historians’ file; RIBA Biographical file, T. P. Bennett & Partners: RLHLH/SS/9: http://www.costar.co.uk/en/assets/news/2012/September/Barts-to-sell- sprawling-5-acre-Whitechapel-site:https://children.bartshealth.nhs.uk/st- bartholomews-hospital:https://www.itv.com/news/london/2014-03-14/london-nhs- workers-see-rents-almost-double-after-accommodation-is-sold. ↩