Local historian salvage story

As I had worked at Shotley Bridge General Hospital since it opened (over 40 years) as a hospital in the NHS, I decided to take some photographs of the empty buildings of the Main Block before they were demolished. I got permission and had a conducted tour of the empty buildings which I knew so well. It was quite eery and it was then that it occurred to me that there should be a memorial to the Hospital and especially to the staff who had worked there. Shotley Bridge General Hospital was well known throughout the medical world especially for its pioneering work in Chest and Heart Surgery and also the Plastic Surgery Unit for its treatment of Burns. The School of Nursing also had a record of Excellence for the quality of nurses who were trained there and went all over the world.
I decided that an excellent memorial would be the door lintle over the main entrance to the Administration Block which contained the date 1912, the year that the building was built as a Poor Law Institute for Mental patients. I asked the Demolition Contractors(O'Briens) for this and they kindly agreed to my request. It is the intention to incorporate the stones in some wall or feature in the centre of the estate to be planned, with a suitable plaque to the history of the Hospital and the many Staff who worked there.
Jack Cavanagh (Former Chief Medical Laboratory Scientific Officer in Pathology)