The Royal Star and Garter Home | |
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General information | |
Location | Richmond, London, UK |
Coordinates | 51°27′01″N0°17′51″W / 51.4502°N 0.2974°W |
Construction started | 1921 |
Completed | 1924 |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Sir Edwin Cooper, based on a 1915 plan by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott [1] |
Listed Building – Grade II | |
Official name | Royal Star and Garter Home |
Designated | 30 May 1990 |
Reference no. | 1254353 |
The Royal Star and Garter Home on Richmond Hill, in Richmond, London, was built between 1921 and 1924 to a design by Sir Edwin Cooper, [2] based on a plan produced by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in 1915, [1] to provide accommodation and nursing facilities for 180 seriously injured servicemen.
Royal Star & Garter, the charitable trust running the home, announced in 2011 that it would be selling the building as it did not now meet modern requirements and could not be easily or economically upgraded. [3] The building, which is Grade II listed, [1] was sold in April 2013 for £50 million to a housing developer, London Square, [4] which has restored and converted the building into apartments.
The trust opened a new 60-room home in Solihull in the West Midlands in 2008 [4] [5] and the remaining residents at the Richmond home moved in 2013 [6] to a new purpose-built 63-room building in Upper Brighton Road, Surbiton, in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames. [3] [7] [8] [9] A third home has now opened in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. The possibility of opening a fourth home is also under consideration, and funds have been set aside for this purpose. [10]
The site is the location of the former Star and Garter Hotel, which closed in 1906. The building was used as a military hospital, known as the Star and Garter Home for Disabled Sailors and Soldiers, during World War I. [11]
The site was then donated to Queen Mary (consort of George V) in support of her plans to establish a home for paralysed and permanently disabled soldiers. The hotel banqueting hall and ballroom were temporarily used to house disabled soldiers, but they were found to be unsuitable for their specialised needs. Demolition of the hotel buildings commenced in 1919 and from 1920 to 1924 the home's residents were transferred to Sandgate, Kent, while the new Star and Garter Home for Disabled Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen was built on the site of the hotel. [11] [12] The new building was dedicated in 1924 as the Women of the Empire's Memorial of the Great War. [13] It was formally opened by George V and Queen Mary on 10 July 1924. [14]
In 1948 residents of the home took part in a forerunner of the Paralympic Games, the first national athletic event for disabled athletes, organised by Dr Ludwig Guttmann. [15]
The Star and Garter Home received its royal charter in 1979, adding the prefix "Royal" to its name. [14] Since the opening of the second home at Solihull in 2008 the charity has used a plural form of the name, as "The Royal Star & Garter Homes".
Some of the residents who died at the home were buried in one of two dedicated sections in the nearby Richmond Cemetery. The cemetery contains two plots dedicated to deceased residents from the home, one of which is marked by the Bromhead Memorial, a large classical-style monument listing the names of those not commemorated elsewhere. [16]
Notable residents have included:
Petersham is a village in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames on the east of the bend in the River Thames south of Richmond, which it shares with neighbouring Ham. It provides the foreground of the scenic view from Richmond Hill across Petersham Meadows, with Ham House further along the river. Other nearby places include Twickenham, Isleworth, Teddington, Mortlake, and Roehampton.
Richmond Park, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, is the largest of London's Royal Parks and is of national and international importance for wildlife conservation. It was created by Charles I in the 17th century as a deer park. It is now a national nature reserve, a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Area of Conservation and is included, at Grade I, on Historic England's Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England. Its landscapes have inspired many famous artists and it has been a location for several films and TV series.
Richmond is a town in south-west London, 8.2 miles (13.2 km) west-southwest of Charing Cross. It stands on the River Thames, and features many parks and open spaces, including Richmond Park, and many protected conservation areas, which include much of Richmond Hill. A specific Act of Parliament protects the scenic view of the River Thames from Richmond.
Pembroke Lodge is an initial, mainstream category listed Georgian two-storey large house in Richmond Park in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It sits on high ground with views across the Thames valley to Windsor, the Chilterns and hills in the Borough of Runnymede. It has 11 acres (4.5 ha) of landscaped grounds, including part of King Henry's Mound from which there is a protected view of St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London. The grounds also include memorials to the 18th-century poet James Thomson and the 20th-century rock-and-roll singer and lyricist Ian Dury.
Latchmere House is a building and grounds southeast of Ham Common in Ham, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, in south west London, England. The southern part of the site lies in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames.
The Star and Garter Hotel in Richmond was a hotel located in the London countryside on Richmond Hill overlooking the Thames Valley, on the site later occupied by the Royal Star and Garter Home, Richmond. The first establishment on the site, an inn built in 1738, was relatively small. This was followed by several other buildings of increasing size and varied design as the site changed from family ownership to being run by a limited company. Some of the rebuilding or extension work took place following fires that by 1888 had destroyed most of the original buildings. At various times architects were commissioned to build grand new buildings or extensions to take advantage of the famed view over the river and valley below, with the largest being the 1860s chateau block by E. M. Barry.
St Anne's Church, Kew, is a parish church in Kew in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. The building, which dates from 1714, and is Grade II* listed, forms the central focus of Kew Green. The raised churchyard, which is on three sides of the church, has two Grade II* listed monuments – the tombs of the artists Johan Zoffany and Thomas Gainsborough. The French Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro (1830–1903), who stayed in 1892 at 10 Kew Green, portrayed St Anne's in his painting Church at Kew (1892).
Wick House is a Grade II listed house in Richmond, London, located near the corner of Nightingale Lane and Richmond Hill. The painter Sir Joshua Reynolds commissioned the house from Sir William Chambers and it was completed in 1772.
The Museum of Richmond in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames is located in Richmond's Old Town Hall, close to Richmond Bridge. It was formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 October 1988.
Royal Star & Garter is a charitable trust established in 1916 in Richmond, London to care for severely disabled young men returning from the First World War. Queen Mary of Teck was the patron of the charity, a role taken on by Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy since 1964.
John CloakeHon. DLitt. was a historian and author of several works mostly relating to the local history of Richmond upon Thames and surrounding areas. He was also a former United Kingdom diplomatic representative in Bulgaria.
Richmond Cemetery is a cemetery on Lower Grove Road in Richmond in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England. The cemetery opened in 1786 on a plot of land granted by an Act of Parliament the previous year. The cemetery has been expanded several times and now occupies a 15-acre (6-hectare) site which, prior to the expansion of London, was a rural area of Surrey. It is bounded to the east by Richmond Park and to the north by East Sheen Cemetery, with which it is now contiguous and whose chapel is used for services by both cemeteries. Richmond cemetery originally contained two chapels—one Anglican and one Nonconformist—both built in the Gothic revival style, but both are now privately owned and the Nonconformist chapel today falls outside the cemetery walls after a redrawing of its boundaries.
The Bromhead Memorial is a memorial and grade II listed building in Richmond Cemetery in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It denotes a plot in the cemetery in which deceased residents of the nearby Royal Star and Garter Home are buried, and lists the names of those who are not commemorated elsewhere.
Sir David Reeve Williams CBE is a British politician and former Leader of Richmond upon Thames Council, where he was a local government councillor for forty years. In July 2017 he was presented with the Freedom of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.
David Guy Blomfield was leader of the Liberal Party group on Richmond upon Thames Council, a writer, a book editor and a local historian.
Twickenham War Memorial, in Radnor Gardens, Twickenham, London, commemorates the men of the district of Twickenham who died in the First World War. After 1945, the memorial was updated to recognise casualties from the Second World War. The memorial was commissioned by Twickenham Urban District Council in 1921. It was designed by the sculptor Mortimer Brown, and is Brown's only significant public work. The memorial is unusual for its representation of a jubilant soldier returning home. It became a Grade II* listed structure in 2017.
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