This weekend marks the 25th anniversary of a well-known hospital closing its doors.

We’re taking a look back at All Saints’ in Chatham, where many people across Medway and Swale would have been born long before it was turned into a housing estate.

The site was built in the mid-19th century and did not originally serve a medical purpose, but instead was a place of work and shelter for society’s poorest.

This new building was to replace workhouses in the area - including the one at the bottom of Chatham Hill in Union Street which is believed to have inspired the novel Oliver Twist by Kent's own Charles Dickens, and the one in St Margaret’s Street in Rochester which is now King’s School.

These Victorian institutions were intended to help those who could not support themselves but became notorious for forcing child labour, making people work long hours and leaving those living in them starving.

After the responsibility of parishes providing relief to the poverty-stricken was transferred to newly formed unions under the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, The Medway Union Workhouse was formed.

The land in Magpie Hall Road was bought for £15 an acre and planned to accommodate 650 people.

But, in 1930, the workhouse system was ended and some of the buildings became a medical centre known as The Medway Hospital or The County Hospital.

Shortly after, in 1948, it was renamed All Saints’ Hospital after becoming a part of the newly founded National Health Service.

Within its first 20 years, Medway Council archives note it was one of the largest hospitals in Kent, with more than 360 beds.

It provided a laundry service for 10 other hospitals, washing up to 65,000 items a week, and even had its own cricket team.

But, after a damning report in 1971 found many former workhouse buildings unfit hospitals, including All Saints’, the hospital underwent many extensions and renovations.

During this time, many of its services were also being transferred to what is now Medway Maritime in Windmill Street, Gillingham.

It was originally a Royal Naval Hospital, opened by King Edward VII in 1905 but, in 1961 it was acquired by the NHS.

So, All Saints’ became Medway’s primary maternity centre instead.

In 1983, it opened a special care baby unit named after long-serving paediatrician, Oliver Fisher.

Sadly, just years later the hospital prepared for its closure.

In 1999, works costing £60m saw the development at the Royal Naval double, and it was renamed Medway Maritime Hospital.

The services provided at St Bartholomew's in Rochester and All Saints' in Chatham were transferred over.

Both hospitals have since closed down, and homes now stand in their place.

The Oliver Fisher unit remains at Medway hospital and has continued to care for thousands of babies across The Towns and Swale.

To commemorate 25 years since All Saints’ closed its doors, a special public exhibition will be hosted by Medway NHS Trust’s maternity and neonatal teams on Monday, July 8 from 10am to 4pm.

There will be displays of photos and memorabilia and staff will talk about their work, advances in medicine and technology and the different services available today compared to 1999.