Catalogue description Records of the East Anglian Sanatorium Company Ltd.; the East Anglian Sanatorium, Maltings Farm Sanatorium and East Anglian Children's Sanatorium, Nayland; the British Legion Village, Nayland, and the British Legion Sanatorium, Nayland. (Later, the Jane Walker Hospital)

Jane Walker Hospital, Nayland

Acc. No. 7812, 7965

• Naylan, Suffolk
• Health services

In 1896 Dr Jane Walker (1859-1938) opened a centre at Downham Market (Norfolk) for the fresh-air treatment of consumption. The demand for places was greater than could be met there and at a few other small locations and in 1899 the East Anglian Sanatorium Company Limited was set up: Malting and Sand Pits Farms in Nayland and Wissington were purchased in the same year and a new sanatorium - the East Anglian Sanatorium - was opened on 22 January 1901 with Dr Walker as Medical Superintendent.

The sanatorium took private patients only but in 1904 a department for poor patients was opened (Maltings Farm Sanatorium). During and immediately after the First World War the male patients at Maltings Farm were almost all ex-servicemen.

Between 1912 and 1916 a separate section for children was established - the East Anglian Children's Sanatorium.

The three sanatoria - run as three separate bodies, but sharing a site, and under the same management - were transferred from 1 May 1943 to the British Legion and renamed the British Legion Village, Nayland: under the National Health Service it was known as the British Legion Sanatorium until its closure as a chest hospital on 5 May 1959.

After 1959 the site became a hospital for the mentally handicapped and was renamed the Jane Walker Hospital.

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