Building work has begun on the former Buckland Hospital site.

Construction workers have in recent weeks been seen in what is thought to be preliminary tasks for the redevelopment.

A sign on the land's outer fencing shows it has now been acquired by Blackstone Estate, of West Malling, for residential development

Originally, in 2019, outline permission was granted for 150 homes on the land, comprising of 142 flats in blocks, and eight houses.

Last year, a detailed planning application for 81 of the homes was approved by Dover District Council.

Further applications will need to be submitted for the remaining 69 homes.

The hospital in Coombe Valley Road was replaced by another with the same name 60 to 70 metres down the road in 2015.

The original hospital was knocked down during 2017.

It was at first the Dover Union Workhouse Infirmary, opening on September 29, 1836.

The centre offered up to 500 people in poverty accommodation and work.

It became a new infirmary in 1884 and a nurses’ home was added in 1902.

Infirmary blocks, a children’s block and a chapel were added over the 19th and 20th centuries. These buildings survived until 2017 but the main one was reconstructed in the 1920s or 1930s.

The institution was known as the County Hospital from 1943 to 1948 and was named Buckland Hospital when it became part of the newly-formed National Health Service in 1948.

The hospital was modified and extended in the following decades, culminating with the physiotherapy building opening in the 1980s.

The road the site is on was called Union Road until it was changed to Coombe Valley Road in 1964.

Blackstone Estates has been contacted by KentOnline for further details.