The hospital was designed by Edward Banks in the classical style and built between 1846 and 1849 on land acquired from the Henry Vane, 2nd Duke of Cleveland.

[1] The internal layout rapidly became outdated when the pavilion system, where patients were separated by type of illness, was introduced at new hospitals in 1852.

[2] Additions included a new wing for in-patients as well as a new block for out-patients in 1872, a fever ward in 1873, a medical library in 1877, an additional two-storey in-patient wing in 1912 and the vast King Edward VII Memorial Wing in 1923.

[1] It was renamed the Royal Hospital, Wolverhampton in December 1928.

[1] The hospital closed in June 1997 with services being transferred to New Cross Hospital; the site was acquired for retail development by Tesco in 2001, but the development stalled in January 2015[3] and the site was later sold on to the Homes and Communities Agency for residential development in March 2016.