These elegant nude reliefs decorate the entry to the Outpatient Department for the Royal Waterloo Children's Hospital.
They are located along the Waterloo Road near Stamford Street, very close to the Waterloo Bridge over the Thames.
From Wikipedia, some history: (
visit link)
"Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women
The Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women was a hospital located on the corner of Waterloo Bridge Road and Stamford Street near Waterloo Station in London, England.
History
The hospital was founded in 1816 as the Universal Dispensary for Children. This was changed in 1852 to the Royal Infirmary for Children and Women. The hospital underwent its final name change to the Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women in 1875.
In an 1856 review of the hospital system in London, the British Journal of Homeopathy noted the serious shortage of hospital beds for children in London:
Again, London possesses but one hospital (Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street), where sick children are received, containing the insignificant number of 30 beds. Paris has a large hospital (Enfants Malades), containing 600 beds for sick children. The Royal Infirmary for Children, Waterloo Bridge Road, is said to be capable, with a few alterations, of containing 80 beds; but we have no reason to suppose that it does yet contain any; and as its funds are stated to be very limited, there seems small hopes of its taking in sick children for the present.
By the year of the hospital's rebuilding in 1903 the concerns over bed space remained: an article in the British Medical Journal raised the concern that the Waterloo site left little room for extension.
Joining the NHS and closure
The hospital joined the National Health Service in 1948 as part of the nearby St Thomas' Hospital group of hospitals (now Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust). The Royal Waterloo Hospital closed on the 27 July 1976. In 1981 the building was sold and became the central London campus of Schiller International University. In 2011, Schiller International University moved out of the building and sold it to University of Notre Dame of South Bend, Indiana, USA where it was renovated and converted into dormitories.
Hospital buildings and locations
In its first incarnation the hospital was located at St Andrew's Hill, in the now demolished Doctor's Commons in the City of London. Between 1903-04 premises were built at a cost of £45,000 to house an outpatients' department and inpatient accommodation of 90 beds at the corner of Waterloo Bridge Road and Stamford Street near Waterloo Station. This building was awarded Grade II listed status by English Heritage in 1980. The hospital remained at this location until its closure in 1976. In September 1981 the building was renovated and became for three decades the central London campus of Schiller International University. The hospital building was renamed Royal Waterloo House, 51-55 Waterloo Road, London SE1 8TX. [See The World of Learning, Section Six: American Colleges in the UK, p. 139 (1988 edition), et al.] In 2010 Royal Waterloo House was sold to another American university, the University of Notre Dame, who further adapted the building as a student residence for students at their London campus."