Devonshire Hospital, Buxton (1916)

Built in 1785 as a stable for the Duke of Devonshire's 110 horses, the former Royal Devonshire Hospital in Buxton features an impressive dome larger than St. Paul's in London. By 1881 the buildings had been converted into a pioneering hospital, and were later home to British soldiers returning from the battlefields of the First World War. This Topical Budget newsreel footage of men undergoing new-fangled treatments in the gleaming thermal mineral water baths is wonderful, though you may wonder how pleasant some of these 'Vapour, Needle and Douche-Spray Baths' actually were. But unlike the happy, healthy-looking veterans shown here, for many horribly injured troops returning from the trenches of the Somme, rheumatism and sciatica would have been the least of their worries. (Simon McCallum) For more information about Topical Budget newsreels, visit: www.screenonline.org.ukYou can watch over 1000 other complete films and TV programmes from the BFI National Archive free of charge in the Mediatheque at BFI Southbank, London and from October 2008 at the new QUAD centre for art and film in Derby -- www.bfi.org.uk www.derbyquad.co.uk For information about the BBC Learning campaign 1918-2008: Ninety Years of Remembrance, marking the 90th anniversary of Armistice, visit: www.bbc.co.uk
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