Diocesan House, St Albans

Diocesan House is located in Verulam Road, St Albans on the northern side between Church Crescent and Britton Avenue opposite College Street grid reference TL1454007480.

It is now known as Verulam House and has also been referred to as the Bishop's Palace.

Throughout the Second World War it was used as a maternity hospital and a facility for the training of pupil midwives by the General Lying-In Hospital which had been evacuated from York Road, Lambeth, (Waterloo), in central London.

During the period between September 1939 and June 1946 two thousand babies were born here.

The General Lying-In Hospital was re-established at its former Lambeth premises in 1946 after the end of the war.

The Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages of Hertfordshire in the district of St Albans at that time indicated that the place of birth was Diocesan House, Verulam Road, St Albans Urban District.

In 1994, Verulam House, St Albans as it was by then again known, which had since 1926 been used mainly as a Diocesan Retreat and Conference Centre by the Church of England Diocese of St Albans, was sold and a trust fund set up with the proceeds.

Since 1996 the House has been the site of the 'Verulam House Nursing and Residential Home'.

The House was also known as the Bishop's Palace from 1913 up until 1926. It is of early nineteenth-century origin and a Grade II listed building.

Coordinates: 51°45′15″N 0°20′49″W / 51.75428°N 0.346949°W / 51.75428; -0.346949

External links

• HMSOldies Verulam
• Bishop's Palace
• Plaque
• General Lying-In Hospital
• Trust Fund
• Birth Certificates Hertfordshire
• Birth Certificates General Register Office