THESE postcards offer an insight into what life was like for soldiers, doctors, nurses and volunteers at Battle Hospital during the First World War.

The Oxford Road hospital, now replaced by a Tesco store - was purpose-built as the Reading Union Workhouse in 1868. However with the outbreak of war in 1914, it was transformed into a makeshift hospital to care for wounded soldiers.

Initially these wounded were brought back solely through the port of Southampton, and with Reading having a direct rail link, Battle Union Workhouse was handed over to the military authorities in October 1914.

The former inmates were rehoused in other local workhouses and the hospital was staffed by military doctors, Army nurses, Red Cross nurses and Volunteer Aid Detachment nursing auxiliaries.

Gradually other buildings were handed over with five schools designated as war hospitals. Redlands School opened in June 1915 with 200 beds, Battle School followed in July with another 200 and Wilson School opened in September offering 300 beds. The Royal Berkshire Hospital and the schools closed as military hospitals during the first half of 1919, reverting to their former roles. Battle discharged its last wartime patient in April 1920 and returned to being an infirmary for the sick and destitute early in 1921.

In 1930 it became a municipal hospital, taking the name Battle Hospital for the first time, and in 1948 it was designated a general hospital under the new National Health Service. A maternity unit was added in 1952 and for many years it was the Reading area's main casualty hospital.

In the late 1990s it was merged with the larger Royal Berks and facilities were gradually transferred until it closed in 2005. Today the entrance archway in Oxford Road and a few buildings remain, but the rest of the site is a Tesco Superstore with few reminders of its proud history.

These photographs, from postcards of that period, were among thousands on sale at the Postcard and Cigarette Card Fair at the Rivermead Leisure Centre on Sunday.

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