Sanctuary from the trenches - Susie Stubbs

To mark the centenary of the beginning of the First World War, the house has been transformed into a military hospital, a re-creation of the convalescent hospital it became in 1917. Dunham Massey became a place of recovery and retreat, where soldiers received vital medical care. Almost 300 soldiers were cared for here between 1917 and 1919. The Grey family who owned the house, made these men wonderfully welcome and its idyllic gardens became the backdrop not solely for medical care but for boating, croquet, cricket, squash, even 'dressing gown parades'. The transformation of Dunham Massey today is a remarkable one - just as it was then, 100 years ago. Gone are the elegant Edwardian interiors. In place of the Saloon is a 25-bed hospital ward (or 'Bagdad Ward' [sic] as it was nicknamed by the patients).