THE history and heritage of a major hospital is to be captured for future generations.

The Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton is undergoing an ambitious £485 million redevelopment to bring its buildings up to 21st century standard.

The Jubilee and Barry buildings in particular were built almost 200 years ago and were no longer suitable for hospital care.

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust has been awarded a grant of £50,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund for a two year project to preserve and represent the hospital’s past through collected objects and stories.

The trust is working in partnership with the Royal Pavilion and Museums, the East Sussex records office at The Keep and the University of Brighton’s centre for research in memory, narrative and histories.

These will form the core of a number of presentations and displays for staff, patients and visitors to the hospital.

Outreach will be an important part of these displays, with a selection of handling materials taken onto the wards for those too unwell to attend the displays.

Talks and events to illustrate and share information about the findings of the heritage project will take place both at the hospital and with partner organisations across the city so a wider audience can be reached.

Trust redevelopment project director Duane Passman said: “The redevelopment will significantly improve the Royal Sussex for the hundreds of thousands of patients and visitors who come here each year.

“We are replacing 12 buildings, including the oldest working acute ward block in the country, with two new state of the art facilities.

“Whilst the buildings being replaced are out-dated now, many of them were at the cutting edge of clinical design in their day and over the years they have been part of the life story of countless people, both patients and staff.

“This funding will allow us to make sure that the new start offered by the redevelopment honours the endeavour, care and human spirit that are the true history of this hospital.

“We are therefore delighted to be able to enhance our ability to celebrate the heritage of the hospital and its links to the local community through this generous funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund.”

The Royal Sussex was built in 1828, with the aim to provide treatment to the local poor and extol the virtues of seawater treatment for people from across the country.

A lot has changed with the addition of the Thomas Kemp Tower and Millennium wing to the site, but the redevelopment is the hospital’s biggest transformation to date.