The Royal Victoria Patriotic Building
This is the building right next to our apartment in London. After getting settled into our apartment, we ventured out to explore the neighborhood. There is a small restaurant just inside the courtyard. So much history is contained within these walls, it is inspiring.A brief history of this magnificent building:
19th Century
Funded by Prince Albert’s Royal Patriotic Fund, the building was intended for the ‘Education and Training of three hundred Orphan Daughters of Soldiers, Seamen and Marines who perished in the Russian War, and for those who hereafter may require like succour’ . Originally named as the Royal Victoria Patriotic Asylum, the building was designed by Major Rhode Hawkins in a heroically ornate Gothic style.
20th Century
By the First World War the building had been renovated. A new heating system was installed and the building had become the South Western General Hospital. In the First World War a temporary railway station was built in front of the building and thousands of wounded troops were treated there. The field behind the building, now the cricket pitch, was filled with marquees full of wounded soldiers – approximately 1800 patients at any one time. After the war the school, still for girls only, reopened until the pupils were evacuated to Wales in 1939.
During the Second World War, the building became the London Reception Centre, a polite name for an alien clearing station run by MI6,under the direction of Colonel Pinto .
After the war the building was used as a Teachers Training College. Now it is used as studio apartments and shops or art gallaries.
http://www.rvpb.com/history.htm
