The hospital was built in 1901 because of the smallpox epidemic and was handed over to the goverment in 1915. It had 800 hundred beds and the wooden huts were put up in about 6 weeks. It was badly bombed in WW2 but some of the buildings were still standing and being used up to about 1971 as farm buildings. [Information courtesy: Denzil Reynolds. Illustration from "Dartford" compiled by Peter Boreham and Nick Harris, ISBN 0-7524-0141-6 - a local council publication].