Old soldiers' home in the ranks before receiving a commission. The site for the Royal Hospital was an area of Chelsea which held an incomplete building "Chelsey College", a theological college James I founded in 1609. The Royal Hospital opened its doors to the Chelsea Pensioners in 1692 for "the relief and succour" of veterans. Some of the first soldiers admitted included those injured at the Battle of Sedgemoor. The hospital maintains a 'military-based culture which puts a premium on comradeship'. The in-pensioners are formed into three companies, each headed by a Captain of Invalids (an ex-Army officer responsible for the 'day to
Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability its permanent home, Melrose Hall on West Hill, in Putney. Melrose Hall had originally been designed for John Anthony Rucker by the architect Jesse Gibson. It came with 24 acres (97,000 m2) of land on which, until the 1960s, the hospital ran a working farm, supplying fresh produce for patients’ meals. The Hall also had extensive gardens, parts of which had been landscaped by Capability Brown. In 1917, the hospital changed its name to the Royal Hospital and Home for Incurables, receiving its Royal Charter two years later. The hospital’s name changed a further two times – once in 1988,