Dee Street Hospital - Former

Now sharing it's city block with a branch of McDonald's family restaurants, the Former Dee Street Hospital is untenanted and unloved, but still standing, in an increasingly industrial corner of Invercargill, a lot having changed from the days when it was set up as a peaceful place of convalescence.

Starting in 1866, the Dee Street Hospital was one of the very first hospitals in New Zealand. The many and varied blocks that went up and came down over the years began with a timber house which came to be known as the 'North Wing'. This is not around anymore but the South Wing, Central Block, and Porters Lodge were all saved when the rest of the hospital met it's end in the 1980s. The controversial demolition took place after more than a century of service, most services gradually relocating to the Kew site which had begun it's rise as Invercargill's main hospital when a fever ward was constructed there in 1907.

All these buildings can be viewed form the outside though they are reportedly in poor condition indoors. The Porters Lodge is a charming cottage and might now be Invercargill's oldest standing house.

Leven Street did not always slice through the hospital reserve, not until after the demolition, the grounds used to connect with the Southland Hospital Nurses Home on the other side of Leven Street. This is also a heritage building and the The Salvation Army have taken occupation here.

NZPlaces would love to see your images, pictures, recollections, art or poetry about Dee Street Hospital. It's easy to send them in. The two images above show the hospital in the 1880s, then in 1904.

Image Credits:[Hospital, Invercargill], 1880s, Invercargill, by Burton Brothers studio, Hospital, Invercargill, circa 1904, Dunedin, by Muir & Moodie studio. Te Papa