Milton Hill House is located to the south of Steventon, some four miles south-west of Abingdon. The building as it is today largely dates from the late 18th century. Nowadays it is a country house hotel, one of the venues collection hotels.
During its lifetime, Milton Hill House has been extensively modernized to suit the requirements of new owners and new users, but most of the work followed the sale of the house in 1912 to Sir Mortimer Singer of the Singer Sewing Machine family. A detailed history of Milton Hill House and Manor may be found here (courtesy of the hotel management, formerly De Vere Venues, now the venues collection).
During World War 1, Sir Mortimore Singer turned the house into a military hospital - General Hospital No 3, Southern Command. The soldiers received treatment for their wounds and were able to take full advantage of the peaceful rural setting whilst being treated.
Several of the photos in this album show convalescent soldiers wearing “Hospital Blues”. Hospital Blues uniform was worn by those patients who could get out of bed. They were a flannel type material of Oxford blue hue with a single-breasted suit and trousers. Each had a white lining. The tie would have been red and the shirt white. Regimental caps were worn and medals were displayed on the left breast. Those with missing limbs would have had their arms and trouser legs of the missing limbs carefully folded up and pinned back. Those lucky enough to still have feet, wore boot(s), highly polished.
With the permission and cooperation of the current hotel management, I have been able to photograph some of the locations/rooms that appear in these photos as they look today. I have added these photos to the relevant pages here for comparison.
*************
Click on any image to go to the album. Use arrows to navigate through the album. Click on << to return to this page.
