Heatherwood Hospital

Story

Heatherwood Hospital is an NHS hospital in Ascot, Berkshire, part of Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust.The hospital was opened in 1922 for the United Services Fund and later taken over by the London County Council giving priority to children of ex-servicemen from London. After formation of the National Health Service it became a general hospital serving the new town of Bracknell. Frimley Park NHS Foundation Trust acquired Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in October 2014 to form Frimley Health.Early historyOriginally a Victorian country residence built in 1876, possibly for the Farrar family, Heatherfield as it was then known was in the ownership of the Ponsonby family between 1881 and 1891, when the Hon. Ashley Ponsonby, a Justice of the Peace and cousin of Sir Henry Ponsonby, Equerry to Queen Victoria, and his family had their country seat there.In 1891 the gardener, Richard Saunders, lived at the Lodge, while the coachman, Cornelius Banister, lived at the Stables .The New York Times reported that on 28 January 1891, Claude Ashley Charles Ponsonby, Ashley's son, married Miss Haller Gross Horwitz of Baltimore in the USA at All Saints church in Ascot. Claude's brother Eustace was the best man. The paper reported that the church was "crowded with representatives of a number of the most aristocratic English families and was handsomely decorated with palms and lilies of the valley". After the wedding, the bride's mother Mrs Horwitz "...gave a dejeuner at Heatherfield, which was largely attended".