07/02/2024
Headly Court DMRC - England 🏴
Formerly known as RAF Headly court,Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre which was one of the leading rehab centres in the UK.
Headley Court started out as an Elizabethan farm house bought by the Cunliffe family, who later built the mansion at the centre of Headley Court in 1899, under Lord Cunliffe, who was Chairman of the Bank of England.
The site was first used as a rehabilitation centre for injured members of the British armed forces from 1985 and continued until 2018.
Surrounding areas of Headly Heath was used as a training ground for engineers building airstrips and trench systems.
200 staff members worked at the site and these included specialist medical officers, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists.
During the 2002 UK Firefighter strike, two Green Goddess fire engines were based at RAF Headley Court. If called upon, the crews would have had to wait for Surrey Police to es**rt them to a fire.
In November 2005, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall visited the centre. They met Major David Bradley of the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment who had been given a five per cent chance of survival, after coming under fire from a Rocket Propelled Gr***de launcher (RPG) in Basra, southern Iraq in 2004.
Headley Court was in need of further facilities, especially a full size swimming pool, as patients had to share a leisure centre in Leatherhead. The charity Help for Heroes was set up in late 2007, with a first objective of raising money to build these facilities. A new gym, swimming pool and lower limbs treatment area opened within two years.
In July 2014, the Minister of Defence, Philip Hammond, announced that the services provided by Headley Court would be transferred to a new centre to be developed at Stanford Hall.
The opening of the new Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre by the Duke of Cambridge took place in June 2018. The centre at Headley Court ceased operations in September 2018 and it has sat abandoned since .
In recent weeks headly court mansion has been stripped out ready for future renovation. Sadly we couldn’t get many decent pictures due to it being empty inside but there was still some stunning features that remain .