The Norfolk and Norwich Hospital was founded in 1771 as a charitable institution for the care of "the poor and the sick" and was established by William Fellowes of Shotesham Park and Benjamin Gooch.

[2] A new hospital designed by Edward Boardman and Thomas Henry Wyatt in the pavilion layout opened on the same site in 1883.

[3] The Norfolk and Norwich Eye Infirmary, which had been founded in 1822 by physicians Lewis Evans and Robert Hull and the surgeon, Thomas Martineau,[4][5] moved to the St Stephen's Road site in 1913.

[10] Major expansion took place at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in the late 1960s with the construction of a ten-storey maternity block, opened by the Queen Mother in 1968.

[11] A new main ward block, diagnostic and treatment area, and a teaching centre were all built in the 1970s.