Did you know that …there was a Ministry of Pensions Hospital at Brindley Heath on Cannock Chase ?
The Military Hospital was built in 1916 to serve both Brocton and Rugeley army training camps. The hospital had twelve wards with a total of one thousand beds and served the camps for the remainder of the war, as well as housing convalescing soldiers from France. It continued to be used until the late 1920s. After this time local miners moved in and squatted in the buildings, and so the site became known as ‘Brindley Village’.
The ‘village’ had its own school and working men’s club and survived until the early 1950s, when the inhabitants were moved to a new council-built housing estate on the outskirts of Hednesford.