Penrith's dispensary and first hospital, Penrith

Situated in what is now Cox's Avenue, the hospital was built by Blomfield and Kersey and completed in 1858, but did not opened until March 1860. The construction of the railway line into Penrith in 1863 isolated the hospital on the northern side of the railway line and this, plus the lack of subscriptions, lead to the hospital being closed in 1868. The building was then used to house the poor, until sometime in the 1880s when the building was demolished due to its dilapidated state. A second hospital was established in 1890 in a building owned by Mrs Price opposite the court house. It would remain a hospital until the bigger Nepean Cottage Hospital opened in 1895 in Glebe Place, north of the railway line.