A former village hospital and care home where Agnes Hunt first honed her nursing skills is being transformed into luxury apartments and terraced homes in a £1 million scheme.
Work has already started at Nightingale House in Eyton Lane, Baschurch, to create three luxury apartments and eight two-bedroom mews houses, and is expected to be completed by early 2009.
The project at the Grade II-listed building is being carried out by Childs Ercall-based developers HM Crossland Properties, and company bosses have pledged to retain the original features of the Georgian house.
It is expected the apartments will cost £250,000 apiece when they go on sale with the terraced homes costing between £150,000 and £180,000.
In October 1900 Agnes Hunt and her friend Emily Selina Goodford moved into the building, known then as Florence House, and founded the world’s first open-air hospital for cripples – as they were then termed.
It evolved into what is today the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic and District Hospital in Gobowen, where it moved to in 1921.
Planning permission for the housing scheme was granted in 2003 shortly after a care home for 17 residents run in the building was closed down by the National Care Standards Commission.
David Ward, of HM Crossland Properties, said: “Baschurch has a need for more properties and we are creating three luxury apartments and eight two-bedroom mews homes.
“It’s a listed building so we will make sure the original Georgian features of the building are retained.
“The place has a lot of history, especially with the Agnes Hunt connection, and we are hoping to have finished the work within 12 or 14 months.”
The development has been praised by local councillor Barbara Craig. She said: “The building had started to deteriorate with windows being smashed, so we are really pleased it’s being brought back into use.”