Owning and running an independent care home, which is also housed in a listed building, makes you responsible not only for the people who we care for here, but also the house too. Stanfield House is part of what makes our care home Worcester what it is today. Its Georgian features and beautiful character add to the homely atmosphere that you find here. They are totally interwoven and now almost indistinguishable from one another.
In my latest blog, I wanted to write about our Worcester care home history.
A Look At Our Worcester Care Home History
Looking at Stanfield House, the building reminds me of myself and the people we care for at our Worcester nursing home. That it’s moving through life, and it needs lots of tender loving care. I bought the nursing home in 1987. It was the first listed building that I’d owned, personally. And I soon began to realize that apart from the responsibilities to the people we were caring for, I also had a responsibility to the care of the house too. At the time, I’d rather stupidly thought I’d purchased a nightmare, in terms of the building.
For somebody who’d been used to doing lots of alterations to buildings, to make sure that they fitted what I wanted them to do, it came as a very big shock that each time I wanted to do something, I had to consult with quite a lot of people, who may hold different views to myself.
It became clear that in order to facilitate the next stage of our Worcester care home history, a level of balance was required in order to correctly preserve the home’s existing history and make the necessary changes that would allow me to create the kind of care home that would best serve my residents.
I found out the best way was to consult what was appropriate with the listed building officer and other interested parties. From there we were able to find the best way forwards.
Stanfield House Before It Became Stanfield Nursing Home
The building had previously been linked to Wick Episcopi, which was the former Bishop’s residence of Worcestershire. I think it’d been the dower house, and the original parts date back to 1546. It’s been added on in quarters, over the years, and it was listed in 1957, for one reason, and one reason in particular, and that is the rather extravagant bay window, off the large sitting room, which requires a lot of tender loving care, to keep it in good order.
The whole building has proved interesting, in terms of its function as a nursing home. But more interestingly, it’s proved very interesting, in terms of a building in its own right.
The house itself was a private house for a very many years, and then it moved out of the Diocesan control, into the individual ownership of people of Worcestershire. The last person who owned it, before it was a nursing home, was a Dr. Cavanaugh, who had lived here for many years and enjoyed the house. In talking to him before he finally moved out of the area, he’d shared with me the joy and happiness of living at Stanfield House.
The next stage of our Worcester care home history was that following ownership by Dr. Cavanaugh, the house was originally converted into a nursing home by a qualified nurse, who at the time, was very ambitious. She had absolutely no money, but she had a passion to convert the house into a nursing home.
To say the least, she was an interesting character. But, like all of us when we become a little bit overambitious, she then hit a brick wall. She had to make repayments for the money that she had spent on converting the building, and she needed to sell the home.
So I was in the privileged position of being able to buy a very beautiful house, not at a knock-down price, but at a sensible price. But it required me to take over and begin to further develop the conversion, to make sure it met the essential standards for a care home as I saw them.
You can learn more about our Worcester care home history with several videos on our Youtube channel.
You may also like to read our other blog on how our residents are staying active at Stanfield Nursing Home.
Yours,
Richard White
Director
If you are considering nursing home care in Worcester for yourself or a loved one, you are most welcome to call us on 01905 420 459 or arrange to come and have a look around our home and gardens.