The Lucas Hospital was founded by Henry Lucas Esq. In his will dated 1663 he requested that his executors establish an almshouse for poor, elderly men who were inhabitants of Windsor Forest.
From 1640 to 1648 Henry Lucas was a dedicated MP for Cambridge University. For a time he held a secretarial appointment with the infamous Earl of Holland. During Holland’s years as Constable of Windsor Forest great hardship was imposed on the local inhabitants, an experience which determined the area of benefit for Lucas’s charity.
In 1664 nearly two acres of land were purchased from Richard Palmer at Chapel Green in Wokingham, but it was not until December 1666 that the grand hospital building was completed and its Chapel consecrated.
By early 1667 a master was installed and the first 16 residents “of not less than 50 years of age, of sober life and conversation, poor and impotent by sickness or other infirmity” were given a furnished room, a £2 fuel allowance and a pension of £10 per annum.
In 1675 the Drapers Company took over the trusteeship of the charity; they were proposed to Lucas by his executor, Thomas Buck, whose ancestors had established similar charities.
The Henry Lucas Charity was perpetuated until 2001, when the Charity Commission allowed the building to be sold for use as a private residence.
Lucas Hospital is Wokingham’s only Grade 1 listed building. Its listing was revised in 2002 and now includes a reference suggesting that from circumstantial evidence “Sir Christopher Wren may have been the architect of this building”. Henry Lucas and his executor, Thomas Buck,
were associated with Wren, Wren’s father and his uncle, but no firm documentation has yet been discovered.
The photograph of four residents outside the hospital was taken in the 1880s.
Because of its contribution to Wokingham’s heritage, this building is part of the Wokingham Society’s Blue Plaque Trail. A leaflet giving details of all of the buildings on the Trail can be obtained from the Wokingham Town Hall Information Centre and Wokingham Library. An electronic version is available from www.wokinghamsociety.org.uk The Trail is also available on a downloadable App called Wokingham Town History.
Wokingham Town Museum Unique Identifier: WTH0320