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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Derbyshire => Topic started by: AnnH on Monday 18 May 09 22:02 BST (UK)
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Hi, Im trying to find a photo and any info. on a maternity hospital/home. It was called I believe, Fairfield Nursing Home. It was still there in 1954 but have no other details.......so any help would be great......
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Hi Ann
Fairfield Nursing Home was on Fairfield Road, Saltergate, Chesterfield. I can't remember what it is now. I have googled it but not found anything. Sorry I can't be more help.
Di
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Hi Anne.
There is a photograph of Fairfield Road on picture the past...but I'm not sure if the home is on there.
http://www.picturethepast.org.uk/
Tuppie
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Hi thanks Di and Tuppie. I think its probably been demolished now Di. Tuppie thats the correct road on the link you posted but the building would have probably been at the other end ie ...Saltergate
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My mum lives down the road from here i will have a look and get a photo when I next go and visit her at the end of July
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HI cezza, thanks that would be great if you can get a photo........
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I would also like that to see that photo
Fairfield nursing Home is now the offices of Shorts builders on Fairfield road. In 1948 it was run by Dr Alexander Duthie
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Have had a look at the photo on the web, this is taken looking up Fairfield Road and the nursing home was more in the middle. It was No 6 Fairfield Road, and is now offices of a building company. I was born in this nursing home in 1948. I am intending to take pictures next week, so will post one. Anybody any more info about what happened to the home, was it closed or did it move elsewhere?
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i have found some more info about fairfield
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Hi, I was born at Fairfield Nursing Home in Fairfield Road in August 1952. I remember my mother talking about a Dr. Horrocks who was there at the time, they used to call him "Flannelfeet" because they could never hear his footsteps in the corridors.
I know the place was still open in 1961, because my cousin was born there at the end of December that year. If anyone has any photos, I would really appreciate seeing them :)
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It's great to know other people were born there, it is so difficult to find out anything about the place, Iwas beginning to think it didn't exist. There are no records of it anywhere,the Council have no info on it. It was run in 1948 by a Dr A M Duthie, and his parrtner Dr G G McFarland. I believe it closed in the late 60's or early 70's and was left empty for a long time. It was pulled down in the early 80's and a lot of new houses built on the site. The builders offices are in the house that was next door. Dr Duthie ran his clinics from the house directly opposite the nursing home, up the yard to the side in a white single story buiding that is still there today. I was born there in 1948 and adopted immediately (I think it was an adoption unit too) and my adopted mum and grandma both had operations done there in 1948 and 1948
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Hi, I was born at Fairfield Nursing Home in Fairfield Road in August 1952. I remember my mother talking about a Dr. Horrocks who was there at the time, they used to call him "Flannelfeet" because they could never hear his footsteps in the corridors.
I know the place was still open in 1961, because my cousin was born there at the end of December that year. If anyone has any photos, I would really appreciate seeing them :)
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Hi there, I gave birth to a baby girl at Fairfield Nursing Home on the 17th December 1961. I was 16 years old and she was taken from me the moment I gave birth so I never saw her face or held her in my arms. I would love to speak with anyone who worked there or lived in the area during that period. Lynne (my baby) was adopted and I was given no choice in the matter by my parents. Having been told I should get on with my life and forget it ever happend.
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I was born in Fairfirld in 1948 and adopted immediately. I recently traced my birth mother, but sadly she does not want contact. There was a lot of secrecy at that place, it is very difficult to find out anything about it at all.
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Thank you so much for your reply. I am so sorry your birth mother did not wish to meet you, perhaps she is still filled with the "shame" which was heaped upon us during those days and is frightened to admit what happened to the family she has now. If Lynne were to contact me I would be over joyed. I have been blessed with two more lovely daughters and a very understanding husband but, it is only now that I have been able to talk freely about it without feeling the dreadful embarrassment and shame which my parents felt I had brought upon them.
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One thing I remember being told about Fairfield, is that it was private, (you had to pay, even after 1947 when the NHS came into being) Also, not that this will be much help, was that my aunt was a nurse there. Her name was Jennie Louisa Longmore, but she passed a few years ago.
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Gosh I wish I had thought about contacting this site earlier, I bet your Aunt was probaly still nursing there when I was in. or perhaps she could have told me more about it. Thanks anyway
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I know it's been a while since this thread had any activity, but as I was googling for some info on FNH and came across this site I thought I'd give you a little input.
I was born there in December 1955, my sister was born there a few years earlier.
I was in Chesterfield last week and thought I'd show my wife the place where I made my entrance into this world, so I drove down Saltergate and found Fairfield Road but alas, no FNH. Not totally unsurprising but a little disappointing nonetheless.
My stay there was longer than normal in that I was there for two weeks, but don't know what the complication was but that was where I spent my first Christmas... my sister hated me from day one for taking her Mum away at Christmas! ::)
All is well now though. ;D
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Fairfield Nursing Home was about halfway up on the left hand side of Fairfield Road, going up from Saltergate to Hawkesley Avenue, towards Newbold.
The building is still there. Home maybe closed in sixties?
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Thanks for that Bangla, I wouldn't have known because the last time I was there I was going home for the first time! I'll have a look when I'm up there later in the month.
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Sorry to disappoint you both but the nursing home is no more. It was demolished in the 1980's and a small development of new houses was built on the site. I have spoken to a lady who lives in the new house that is built on the exact spot where she was born in the 1940's in Fairfield (as was I, as a matter of fact). It was run then by Doctors Duthie and Mcfarland. Dr Duthie lived in the house opposite on the righthand side going up Fairfield Road, and held his clinic in the outbuilding you can still see up the top of the drive.
I have tried to find out more about the home, but it seems to be shrouded in mystery, you can speak to Chesterfielders about it and most people had someone who had been in there, but no local autority know anything about it. There are certainly no records available anywhere. Strange?
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Ah, I thought that I'd read that earlier, but when I looked back another poster said that it was now the builder's offices. Presumably that's not the case then.
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I bow to more local knowledge! Certainly, new houses were built some years ago but I thought that they were in the LOWER GARDEN of the house and that the house was still standing.
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I telephoned the last house belonging to the solicitors on the left just after the new ones and spoke to their receptionist, she said that she had been in Fairfield herself and that it had been next door, the home closed in the late 1950 early 1960's and stood empty for 10 - 15 years before being bought by builders.
I too am sorry I didn't look for it earlier. I think it's too late to hope anyone has a phot now. I did consider contacting the Derbyshire Times to see if they would run an article on it.
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What a great idea Steppi to contact the Derbyshire Times. Surely they would print something or maybe they even have a photo from way back.
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I had cause to search for the Fairfield today. It appears to be this place if you read the blurb. http://search.issl.co.uk/detailsLite.aspx?Reference=12-7442AJT&chainid=1041
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hi there, I'm just after some information about the Fair Field nursing home around the 1950s as I recently discovered my father was born there.
Is it true there was an adoptions unit also as it took 3 weeks for my father to be registered and wondered why. ?
My grandparents weren't living together at the time and my grandad was allready married.
Also theres some foreign blood somewhere but my fathers siblings aren't foreign.
Was it a private hospital cant find much about it at all
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I recall Fairfield Nursing Home when I worked in Chesterfield in the 1950s. Drs. Duthie and MacFarland ran a private maternity home and there seemed to be a lot of adoptions from there.
Don't know what happened to the building as don't live in the area now.
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hi do you know if people who went this hospital had to give there babies up for adoption or was it choice thanks
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Could not say for sure, but adoptions seemed to be on a regular basis. The two doctors had very caring reputations as I recall but it's all a long time ago now. At the time, I did get the impression that the girls were not pressurised into parting with their babies by the Fairfield staff but, again, I could not be sure.
I do believe that it was also a normal nursing/maternity home and ladies went there on a private fee paying basis to have their babies. A bit up-market you might say and, so I was once told, "a bit posh".
Aquilegia18
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Hi thanks for your reply well it turned out my father and his brother weren't full siblings and it was my father who was born in fairfield and his parents weren't living together or married this was in 1954 plus they look nothing alike
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A bit up-market you might say and, so I was once told, "a bit posh"
I still have the invoice from Drs Duthie & McFarland for my mother's stay at Fairfield for my birth on 12th January 1955.
She stayed for a remarkable 11 days at a total cost of £19/16/0 which is about £450 in today's money.
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I too was born in Fairfield in Dec 1948.
I remember my Mum talking about Dr Duthie.
Although we lived in Bakewell my grandfather was a director of a corn merchants in Saltegate and lived ivthinkvat that time at a house called Loundsley on Ashgate Road - they moved to Somersall Lane after that before moving south in 1954.
I am singing with a choir in the parish church next month and hope to do a bit of looking around while there as I've been in Yorkshire since 1953.
I think Grandpa's old office/ grain warehouse at 14 Saltergate is now a carpark, but I see No 116 where they lived in 1917 when Mum was born us still standing if Google 7s to be believed.
I suspect Grandpa would have footed Dr Duthie's bill, he was very generous.
Interesting to read about the adoptions, I had no idea.
I just assumed it was a private Maternity home.
The suspicious retired solicitor in wonders if prospective adopters paid Dr D' s bills !!!
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My name is David Marshall ... born October 21st 1959, in Fairfield Nursing Home. at 12.30pm !
And ... at the cost of 19 Pounds, 9 Shillings & 6 Pence ! ... Yes ! somehow that receipt has survived.
I remember my Mother telling me, a baby girl with the surname Burgen, was born at exactly the same time 12.30pm. We were the only babies born there that week. Say hello if you are still out there! Gosh!, or maybe an altogether much stronger word ... Isn’t life short !
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Hi - think I've come to this post a few years late but never mind. I was born in Fairfield Nursing Home Chesterfield in 1949. I had no idea that a lot of babies were adopted from there. Many years ago I had cause to stay in Chesterfield on business and stayed at a B&B on Fairfield Road. Apparently the owners came from Wales but told me that the building was at one time the nursing home. It is possible and if so I could have slept in the room where I was born! Any photos?