Royal Star and Garter Home, Richmond

The Royal Star and Garter Home
The Royal Star and Garter Home
General information
Location	Richmond, London, UK
Coordinates	51°27′01″N 0°17′51″W / 51.4502°N 0.2974°W / 51.4502; -0.2974
Construction started	1921
Completed	1924
Design and construction
Architect	Sir Edwin Cooper, based on a 1915 plan by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott
Listed Building – Grade II
Official name	Royal Star and Garter Home
Designated	30 May 1990
Reference no.	1254353

The Royal Star and Garter Home on Richmond Hill, in Richmond, London, was built between 1921 and 1924 to a design by Sir Edwin Cooper, based on a plan produced by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in 1915, to provide accommodation and nursing facilities for 180 seriously injured servicemen.

The Royal Star & Garter Homes, the charitable trust running the home, announced in 2011 that it would be selling the building as it did not now meet modern requirements and could not be easily or economically upgraded. The building, which is Grade II listed, was sold in April 2013 for £50 million to a housing developer, London Square, which has restored and converted the building into apartments.

The trust opened a new 60-room home in Solihull in the West Midlands in 2008 and the remaining residents at the Richmond home moved in August 2013 to a new purpose-built 63-room building in Upper Brighton Road, Surbiton, in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames. A third home will open in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, in late 2017/early 2018. The possibility of opening a fourth home is also under consideration, and funds have been set aside for this purpose.

The site is the former location of the Star and Garter Hotel, which closed in 1906. The building was used as a military hospital, known as the Star and Garter Home for Disabled Sailors and Soldiers, during World War I.

The site was then donated to Queen Mary (consort of George V) in support of her plans to establish a home for paralysed and permanently disabled soldiers. The hotel banqueting hall and ballroom were temporarily used to house disabled soldiers, but they were found to be unsuitable for their specialised needs. Demolition of the hotel buildings commenced in 1919 and from 1920 to 1924 the home's residents were transferred to Sandgate, Kent while the new Star and Garter Home for Disabled Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen was built on the site of the hotel. The new building was dedicated in 1924 as the Women of the Empire's Memorial of the Great War. It was formally opened by George V and Queen Mary on 10 July 1924.