Christie Cancer Hospital and Holt Radium Institute, Wilmslow Road, Withington

THE NEW CHRISTIE CANCER HOSPITAL AND RADIUM INSTITUTE: A STORY OF PROGRESS – Manchester is about to fight with increasing courage the disease of cancer. In the new Christie Cancer Hospital and Holt Radium Institute at Withington, to be opened by Lord Derby on November 5, it has the essentials for this life-saving enterprise. …. The new hospital at Wilmslow Road, Withington has been built because of the successful work already done and of the assurance of further success with adequate public support. An administration fund of £100,000 is urgently needed to enable the hospital to give the fullest service to the people who look to Manchester as the centre of treatment, people to the number of 4,000,000 living in the North and Midlands. The Christie Hospital and the Radium Institute have in the past occupied separate sites and worked in co-operation, but when the enlargement of both became necessary it was decided to unite their interests and objects under one roof and management. This will lead to greater efficiency and reduce the tragic queue of waiting patients. There are 104 beds in the central ward blocks – a few of which are small private wards for payment on a nursing home basis – almost three times the number available at present. No other institution of its kind in the provinces has such a wide range of usefulness, concentrating in one building the treatment of cancer by radium, X-rays, surgery and medicine, and promoting the scientific study of the disease. The illustration shows the hospital as it will be ultimately “a pleasant group of brick domestic buildings (to quote Professor C H Reilly) spreading out fanwise from a crescent-shaped court in front, the centre block of which rises with a hipped pantile roof and a white plastered storey above the flat –roofed ward blocks and other buildings.” The present scheme omits two of the main ward blocks. In the centre of the group is the Administration Block, comprising main entrance, board room, offices, flats for the matron and resident doctors. On the right and left are the two-storey main wards, each accommodating forty beds and having sun balconies. Between the main wards are private wards for 24 beds. On the right is the Nurses’ Home and between this and the Hospital are nurses’ and doctors’ dining rooms, recreation and lecture rooms, and, in close touch, kitchen and boiler house premises. The operating theatres are on the left of the Administration Block, facing north. Fronting Wilmslow Road and on the left is the Holt Radium Institute, including offices, research and work rooms, radium store etc. On the right is the out-patients department. The architects, Harry S Fairhurst and Son, planned each section for the utmost efficiency and in right relation to other departments for the economical and convenient working of the whole. [Manchester Guardian 8 October 1932 page 16]

William Thorpe and Son Limited, the general contractors, have been established for 50 years, and have carried out numerous important building contracts, including technical schools, churches, banks, schools and swimming baths. During that time they have seen many changes in the evolution of the building industry. …In the building of the Christie Hospital there have been used over 2,000,000 bricks, and nearly 8,000 tons of concrete. The joinery work has been manufactured in the firm’s own workshops.

Constructional Steelwork – Banister Walton and Co Ltd Trafford Park

Reference        Builder 17 April 1931 Page 741
Reference        Manchester Guardian 21 June 1932 page 14 – Reilly New Buildings in Manchester
Reference        Manchester Guardian 8 October 1932 page 16 – feature article