Kingsmead Lodge · Beech Lodge · Oak Lodge · Clemsfold House · Redwood House
Visited: August 20245

There’s a particular hush that hangs over former care homes. Schools leave behind noise etched into the walls; hospitals leave the cold geometry of routine. But care homes? They hold the softer imprints of everyday living—cup-marks, scuffed skirting, scribbled rota boards, faded fire-exit arrows—quiet signals of lives lived gently and then gone elsewhere. Across West Sussex, a small constellation of Sussex Healthcare sites now sits in that in-between state: not yet demolished, not quite remembered. We spent a day tracing five of them.

Kingsmead Lodge

Impression: Low-rise brick and long corridors; a campus more than a house.

Kingsmead greets you with utility first: fire doors in sequence, mint-green panelling, and that familiar run of small bedrooms off a single spine. Ceiling tiles are down in places, exposing joists and cabling like a peeled ceiling. Day rooms face out onto gardens—big panes, low sills, the kind of windows meant to bring the outside in for those who couldn’t always get there.

What lingers are the practical ghosts: the empty wall where a nurse-call board once blinked, the label-shadows on cupboard doors, a lone fire extinguisher still tagged and ready. You catch yourself listening for the beep-pause-beep of a call tone that never comes.

Photographer’s note: Best light late afternoon; the corridors read well with a small torch bounced off the ceiling to lift the gloom without killing the atmosphere.

Beech Lodge

Impression: Domestic scale with institutional bones.

Beech Lodge wears its years in edges: a handrail polished satiny by habit, vinyl floors with that soft, permanent grey of a thousand mops. Rooms feel smaller here—closer to family living than facility—and the gardens press in on every side. Rhododendrons have taken the paths the way water takes a hillside, choosing the easiest line until the route is gone.

On a noticeboard, the palimpsest of timetables—quiz night, visiting hours, physio—can still be read if you stand at an angle. The smell is dust and timber and rain that got in when a hinge finally gave up.

Oak Lodge

Impression: Mirror-plan twin to Beech with different light.

Oak feels like Beech’s sibling—same era, similar layout—but the light falls kinder. A rear day space opens to lawn, and you can imagine chairs angled to the sun while someone read the headlines out loud. In a utility room the outline of a wall-mounted hoist remains, its fixing points like constellation marks on plaster.

There’s dignity in the emptiness here: cupboards cleared properly, curtains taken down, noticeboards wiped. You sense a closing done with care.

Clemsfold House

Impression: The grand elder; Arts & Crafts bones with care-home arteries.

Clemsfold is different—older, taller, louder in the way it looks at the sky. Tall chimneys, tile-hung gables, leaded panes: a country house pressed into service and then left to breathe again. The conservatory-style room at the rear—big mullioned windows and a short flight of garden steps—must have been a warm, bright hub on winter days.

Out on the grounds a timber garden pavilion leans just enough to look photogenic. There’s a dry pond edged with stone and a picket fence that is more suggestion than barrier. The boundary between “home” and “institution” feels thinnest here; you can see the family house it once was without squinting.

Photographer’s note: Wide exteriors reward black-and-white—chimneys against restless sky, foliage closing the frame. Bring a polariser if the clouds are cooperating.

Redwood House

Impression: 1970s/80s brick, long frontage, wide grassed apron.

Redwood is all about scale: a two-storey block with clipped lines and practical elevations. Around the back the lawn runs broad and flat, the sort of space made for summer fêtes and impromptu bowls with plastic sets from the activity cupboard.

At one edge, a small timber playhouse sits weathered and perfect—flaking paint, clouded panes, a toy cooker still outside like the last scene of a play. It’s an unexpected, tender relic that says more about daily life than any signboard could.

Themes that tie them together

• Light vs. Long Corridors: Each site balances long, fire-segmented corridors with pockets of generous glazing. The day rooms are always where the heart was.
• The Patina of Care: Label shadows, rubber bumper rails, compliant signage, thumbed handrails—micro-details that read as “care” even when all else is silent.
• Gardens Reclaiming: Every site gives the same quiet warning: stop maintaining a path and the shrubs will take it back in a season. Give them two and the path forgets it ever was.

Reflections

Care homes are designed around time—routine, medication rounds, visiting hours, birthdays marked on big wall planners. When that time stops, the buildings hold the pause like a breath. These five places aren’t dramatic ruins; they’re gentle ones. Their stories live in leftover fixtures, in the routes worn smooth from bedroom to lounge, and in the way the gardens lean in kindly, as if to keep the buildings company.

We left with the usual pocket-litter—dust on boots, ISO still too high on the last shot—and something else besides: respect. People lived here. They laughed here. They were looked after here. Empty now, yes—but not forgotten.

Practicalities & Respect

Urban Discovery documents places for the historic record and community interest. We do not force entry, damage property, or disclose access details. If a site is live, secured or under redevelopment, we stand down. If you have memories of Kingsmead Lodge, Beech Lodge, Oak Lodge, Clemsfold House or Redwood House—and are happy to share—drop us a note; we’d love to add your voice to the archive.

— Urban Discovery · Audit · Document · Archive