This remarkable photograph below shows Clayton Vale House overlooking Clayton Pond in 1875, with several smartly dressed figures apparently practising archery on the bank.

At the time, the Vale presented a very different scene from the woodland and footpaths familiar to visitors today. Clayton Vale House stood prominently above the water, surrounded by open land and gardens.

The house had recently been the home of Dr Frederick Crace-Calvert, a distinguished analytical and industrial chemist whose pioneering work helped establish the disinfectant and medical uses of carbolic acid.

Crace-Calvert died at Clayton Vale House in October 1873, after contracting typhoid during a visit to Vienna.

We cannot yet say with certainty who was living at the house when this photograph was taken two years later. His widow may have remained there for a time, although there is no firm evidence placing her at Clayton Vale House in 1875.

The house was later occupied by Arthur and Louisa Mary Waithman, but they appear to have moved in after this photograph was taken. The archers may therefore have been residents, relatives or guests, but their identities remain unknown.

Within around twenty years, Clayton Vale House had taken on a very different purpose.

The property was adapted for use as an isolation hospital for infectious diseases and became particularly associated with smallpox, one of the most feared illnesses of the period. Its isolated position in the Vale, away from Manchester’s densely populated streets, made it a suitable place to treat patients while reducing the risk of infection spreading through the city.

The hospital was already receiving smallpox convalescents by the early 1890s. During a serious outbreak in 1894, it was hurriedly prepared to receive patients suffering from acute smallpox, with additional wards and facilities brought into use.

The original country house appears to have formed part of a wider hospital complex that developed within the Vale. Other buildings were added as the need for isolation accommodation increased, while Clayton House, on the opposite side of the River Medlock, was used to house hospital nurses.

There is a striking connection between the house’s first recorded resident and its later medical use.

Official reports from the hospital record patients being treated with carbolic oil, a substance closely related to the carbolic acid on which Crace-Calvert had carried out pioneering work.

There is no evidence that his family donated Clayton Vale House for use as a hospital, or that the hospital was founded in his memory. Nevertheless, it is a remarkable coincidence that his former home later became a place where treatments connected to his scientific work were used in the care of infectious patients.

Clayton Vale Hospital remained known locally as the Clayton Smallpox Hospital for decades.

As late as April 1946, a soldier returning to Britain from Rangoon was diagnosed with smallpox in Manchester and taken to the hospital. Sadly, he died there a week later.

More than 700 people who may have come into contact with him were traced and vaccinated. No further cases followed, demonstrating the importance of the isolation and public-health measures put in place.

The hospital buildings appear to have disappeared by around the 1950s, leaving little obvious trace of the complex that once stood beside the River Medlock.

Do you remember hearing stories about Clayton Vale Hospital? Perhaps a relative worked there, was treated there or remembered the abandoned buildings. We would love to hear from you, and to see any photographs that may survive.