It was opened in 1760,[1] so becoming the second Royal Naval Hospital in Great Britain (after RNH Haslar, which had first received patients some seven years earlier).

[6] The main quadrangle is described as 'a complex of outstanding historical significance in the development of institutions for the care of the sick, which forms the principal part of a remarkable and complete military hospital'.

[13] Its pattern of detached wards (arranged so as to maximise ventilation and minimise spread of infection) foreshadowed the 'pavilion' style of hospital building which was popularised by Florence Nightingale a century later.

[14] In the eighteenth century Plymouth's new hospital was highly praised by (among others) John Howard, Jacques-René Tenon and Charles-Augustin de Coulomb.

These were contained in ten three-storey ward blocks arranged around a square courtyard (designed to serve as a spacious exercise ground for convalescing patients).

[16] Centrally placed on the east side, directly opposite the entrance to the quadrangle, was an eleventh block, which housed the dispensary and dispenser's apartments, and above them a chapel (lit by a large venetian window), where divine service was offered every Sunday.

These appear to have been designed as cooking and victualling rooms, but before long they began to be put to other uses; in the later 18th century one was serving as a smallpox ward and another as a storehouse.

From here an entrance arch led to receiving wards (with a bath room and a clothing store) where new arrivals were washed and provided with clean bedclothes.

[2] West of the main quadrangle, facing the central block with its cupola, were a pair of gates flanked by lodges, which contained offices for the Agent[17] and the Steward[18] (who between them were responsible for the finances, stores, provisions and personnel of the hospital).

It was supplied from a nearby reservoir [30] During the Napoleonic Wars the hospital was overseen by a Governor and three lieutenants; the senior officers included two physicians and two surgeons, the agent, the steward, a chaplain and a dispenser.

[16] In addition, the hospital served (along with RNH Haslar) as a 'grand depot for medicines and medical stores, &c. for the English naval shipping'.

[37] In 1993, in the wake of the government's Options for Change review, the decision was taken to close RNH Plymouth (along with a number of other military hospitals in the UK).