Cottage Hospital

Situated at the west end of the village, the Coquetdale Cottage Hospital is the only hospital in west Northumberland between Hexham and  Berwick.  In 1905 Miss Catherine Dawson bought Coquet House, previously a guest house,  converted it onto a hospital and donated it to the village.  She and her sister Miss Mary Dawson endowed it with £200 a year. 

There were originally three beds, and all treatment was free.

The sisters were daughters of Ralph Hanson Dawson, "gentleman, wine merchant", of Wapping, and his wife Margaret Farquhar of Rothbury, daughter and heiress of George Farquhar (who incidentally, gave the ancient fire engine to Rothbury in 1788). 

Margaret Farquhar inherited the estate at Holystone, which eventually descended to her only surviving son William.  On his death in 1884 he  left everything to his three sisters.  

In 1893 Mary Dawson gave the peal of eight bells to Rothbury Parish Church in memory of William, and a commemorative plaque can be seen in the church.  There are also three windows in Holystone church in memory of Ralph and Margaret Dawson and "a much loved sister" who died in 1849. The family coat of arms is among those carved on the chancel screen at Rothbury. Their final memorial is the Cottage hospital.

Before her death in 1906, Miss Dawson registered the hospital with the Charity Commissioners and appointed a local Board of  Trustees, who with their successors administered the growing hospital until the coming of the National Health Service in 1948.

A maternity unit was founded in 1946 as a memorial to the Second World War, and after 1948 this expanded rapidly with up to three hundred babies delivered annually.  There was also an expansion of consultants' clinics and services such a physiotherapy, and in 1956, as a result of local initiative, the adjoining Hawthorn Cottage was bought as a hospital extension.

But as medical science advanced and treatment depended more on expensive technology, concentrated in the larger hospitals, a gradual attrition began.

In  1975 it came under a new Area Health Authority which took over its administration from the local managers.  The maternity unit was closed, the consultants' clinics was discontinued, and Rothbury was left to provide only convalescent and geriatric care.  

However people's concern and generosity remained unwavering, and the League of Friends of Coquetdale was formed in 1978, to provide a focus for local involvement.  Over the year's the Friends have provided many extra amenities, the most striking of which was the total refurbishing of Hawthorn Cottage for the physiotherapy department in 1990, at a cost of £60,000 raised locally.  It was opened in that year by Jimmy Saville.

In 1993 the hospital became part of the new Cheviot and Wansbeck Trust, whose financial problems subsequently caused much anxiety.

In 2006 the hospital finally closed and the old building was refurbished as apartments.

From here continue west towards Rothbury House