Fantastic Hospital Picture...

[centurion]

I was thinking of a large resort hotel not necessarily in the Med converted into use as a convalescent hospital. Normandy coast for example

[MartH]

I could many places, I would be interested if the mix of units could give any clues?

[Dragon]

Maybe someone can find a detailed picture of le Tréport Military Hospital. It has those sort of proportions. Picture from my collection.

If this is a stupid idea, I'll delete the post.

Gwyn

[4thGordons]

I am not sure about the Med. link.

I think Centurion is correct and that they are huts in front of the building rather than shades or a veranda.

I was going to suggest that is is more likely a major concentration hospital such as Netley in Southampton. The Architetural style is not far off it seems to me although the front of Netley has rounded arched windows. The addition of the huts suggests to me that it might be the rear of the building and I have yet to find an image of the back of Netley.

Having just seen Gwyn's post that looks a possibility too...and there were several hospitals at places like Dinard etc as Centurion suggests.

Chris

[Dragon]

Try this. It's the Hotel Trianon above le Tréport which became the hospital.

Picture

Differences in details could be the different elevations (front / rear / sides).

Gwyn

[centurion]

Its le Trianon-Hôtel outside le Treport built 1912 and converted into a hospital during WW1, blown up by the Nazis when they were, vainly, fortifying the Normandy coast

Hospital

Beaten to the draw but one of the photos in my link is very close to the view in the original at top of thread

[Dragon]

It didn't know this was a race.

The elevation in the opening post is different from the elevation in both linked pictures. The opening image has a wing of at least four windows on the left of the picture and the windows in the portico are different. This is why I cautiously suggested that if this is the building, it may be a different elevation. It would be likely to have extending wings at the rear because that would give more bedrooms facing the sea or gardens.

I seem to remember the ruins have a set of steps at the le Tréport-facing aspect.

Gwyn

[Dragon]

Rear view here. (Les Terrasses) Scroll down 6 pictures. The architectural details here match the opening image.

My memory is that the remaiins of the stone balustrade was still there last time I went. It was creepy.

Gwyn

[Chris_Baker]

Well done, you two!

[Dragon]

It's possible that the barbed wire was there to stop people wandering over the cliff edge.

[centurion]

It didn't know this was a race.

The elevation in the opening post is different from the elevation in both linked pictures. The opening image has a wing of at least four windows on the left of the picture and the windows in the portico are different. This is why I cautiously suggested that if this is the building, it may be a different elevation. It would be likely to have extending wings at the rear because that would give more bedrooms facing the sea or gardens.

The link I enclosed has a lot more than one photo and some do show a similar view. There are also photos of it in use as a hospital

[centurion]

Is this photograph cropped very severely? A building that size would hold a lot more patients than we can see.

Looking at photos of this hospital in action I suspect that when a major 'push' was taking place it could barely cope (I attach a photo of casualties from the Somme awaiting admission - it puts some of the problems with today's A&E depts in perspective) but in between it might be just ticking over

[Peter Doyle]

Just when you think you're not going to get any answers...

Thanks very much everyone, v.nice piece of detective work. The buildings are a dead spit for the ones linked, and I'm happy! I agree that one of the soldiers is probably French, looking at his uniform, but all others are in hospital blues. And yes, there are definitely Aussies here!

Thanks to your work, our pic now has a location. The Forum scores again.

Best wishes and thanks once again

Peter

[centurion]

This shot may also be of interest, It shows men in the grounds of the same hospital awaiting transport to take them, eventually, back to England to continue their treatment.

[Peter Doyle]

Superb, thanks indeed for your help!

Peter

[Dragon]

I hadn't actually looked at this thread until this afternoon, but as soon as I saw the opening photo it brought to mind the hospital above le Tréport in the former hotel. I found a card I had collected years ago and cautiously thought that it might well be the place. My postcard was sent by a soldier recovering there to a woman in Yorkshire.

I've been there several times and hate it. One of the first times I was wandering round the few cliff top stones which remain of the hospital site, I was oppressed with a profound sense of claustrophobia and tension. Weird. Chilling. All there is to see is a set of stone steps and a stone banister, and a couple of pillars, forming what would have been a veranda. As soon as I walked on to that veranda, I was breathless, my chest was tight and hurting, I felt dizzy and frightened and I had a deep unlocatable feeling of anxiety. It was sort of impenetrable. At that point, I had no idea it had been a hospital in the war.

Its proximity to Mont-Huon British cemetery is poignant, as is the cliff-top position looking towards England. The men's last stop before the boat to Britain. So close and so far.

Gwyn

[centurion]

Another shot showing them waiting for that boat

[John Gilinsky]

Yes very very good work and consideration of others Gwyn! I was simply testing my hypothesis of course to demonstrate the affinity of northern French upper class recreational (hotel) architecture with the southern French and MEDITERRANEAN architectural styles (3 ish story white buildings with simple elegance...)! Glad you all saw the affinities

John

Studying those ancient comparative architecture guides in muddied but early spring York, Upper Canada.

[Dragon]

Sorry, John - it was not a profound process! I happen to have been to that spot quite a lot and to have a small collection of Victorian and Edwardian postcards of Normandy seaside villages and towns, mainly Mesnil-Val and le Tréport. I needed them to inform something I was writing. (Mesnil-Val is the next village south and you can walk beween the two along the cliffs. Preferably with a plate of fruits de mer and a chilled bottle of Muscadet at the end of the walk.) Le Tréport used to attract Parisiens. Maybe still does.

What is striking is the monster hotel on the top of the cliffs, looking down towards a small working fishing town with narrow houses, shops, restaurants and the casino crammed up against the cliffs, a town which would be unremarkable and rather charmless if it were not for the dramatic cliffs, the sea and the lighthouse jetty. The village of Mesnil-Val clusters round a narrow inlet and is characterised by quirky, fantastical architecture. The Trianon seemed so wildly out of context. It immediately came to my mind and I needed to hunt down a picture to confirm it.

I bet it wouldn't get planning permission these days!

[John Gilinsky]

Ah precisely Gwyn! The catering to the upper classes would have their guest house for the summer or season perched high up the plebian working class are of a small rural fishing village. As to planning permission - money talks almost always. If you lived in Le Treport and ANYONE Frenchmen or othewise offerred your town a new library, a new community centre, all roads to be repaved, all new street lighting in place, a huge new town park etc...IF you approved their brand new hotel which people (rich who will spend more money in your community and surrounding countryside) want to come to what do you think local politicians, representatives and planners would decide? The point as well about southern French, (eg. Rivieria style type) warmer Med type architecture is I think a valid one: northern more colder climate Parisians who wished to travel but NOT that far could imagine (INDOORS with lots of plants eh?) that they were in the south while not actually being there.

John

York, Upper Canada

[Dragon]

I meant that these days, at least in the UK, we are wary about spoiling natural features in areas of notable beauty. Dumping a four-storey monster on top of really dramatic, sweeping, towering cliffs backed by a rural landscape wouldn't go down well now. It would have to be toned down and designed more sensitively. Just looking at the landscape photo I posted - the hotel's about as sympathetic as a nuclear power station!

It was a throwaway remark, really. I've no idea about the processes which existed in turn-of-the-century France, if any!

[centurion]

It can get pretty hot on the Normandy coast in the summer. Le Treport also had a casino at the time - much like Deauville which also had hotels with a similar architecture. One reason why I suggested Normandy

[b3rn]

Just came across this, taken at the same time. (Spot the Aussie.)

http://www.le-treport-cartes-postales-anciennes-et-photos.com/40-categorie-10485693.html

Collection Alain et Annick Letenneur

http://www.letenneur.com/

[Peter Doyle]

Great image - I'll have to compare it with my original.

Best wishes

Peter

[g6yfb]

I don't think they are all Aussies, one second row from the front looks like a dough boy, an american cousin to you and me. This may help date the picture to the latter end of the war.