The workhouse was opened in 1836 and was designed by Sir Francis Head, using his own "courtyard" plan. This type of layout, in which an outer perimeter of buildings enclosed a large inner courtyard, was employed by a number of Kent Unions including Blean, Bridge, Eastry, East Ashford, Faversham and Maidstone. The Poor Law Commissioners authorised an expenditure of £6,583 on construction of the building which was to accommodate 400 inmates. After 1930 the complex became the Hill House Public Assistance Institution and then Hill House Hospital. It closed in 1986 and the buildings demolished in 1989. (1)

The footprint of the hospital fell within the area encompassed by a desk based assessment carried out prior to development of Land adjacent to Southall Close, Minster, Kent. The report notes that By the mid eighteenth century a small building had been erected just to the west of the junction of Dunstrete and Tothill Street, named as Mount Pleasant, or earlier as K. William’s Mt. The property remained is shown again in 1797 and is named as the Prospect Inn in 1872. The building survived until 1939 when a new public house was erected on a new site just to the east. Immediately to the south of the PDA the Isle of Thanet Union constructed a new workhouse on a courtyard plan in 1836. Much of the land to the north of the hospital was given over to vegetable gardens. By the end of the century a new infirmary had been erected on the east and a new fever or smallpox isolation hospital had been erected just to the north-east, with a further unidentified isolated building erected between the two. Further additions had been made to the workhouse on the north by 1905 when it had become the Isle of Thanet Public Assistance Institution. By this date there had also been further residential development along Tothill Street, the first part of the municipal cemetery had been laid out and the Minster Laundry erected on the east. Later the workhouse became the Hill House Hospital, the latter finally closing in 1986, the buildings being demolished in 1989 and the site redeveloped for housing. (2)

<1> Oxford Archaeology, 2003, A256 East Kent Access Desktop Assessment (Unpublished document). SKE17497.

<2> Canterbury Archaeological Trust Ltd., 2016, Land adjacent to Southall Close, Minster, Kent, Archaeological desk-based assessment report (Unpublished document). SKE52598.