St Albans' Batchwood Hall Covid-19 vaccination centre to close

The nightclub's chandelier is still in place as well as most of its fittings

A former nightclub converted into a Covid-19 vaccination centre in under a month will shut at the end of July after giving more than 75,000 doses.

The Batchwood Hall centre in St Albans has given 44,445 first doses and 31,820 second doses since 15 December.

The Herts Valleys Clinical Commissioning Group said it had been a "nostalgic experience" for many.

"There cannot be many people who had their Covid vaccine underneath a huge chandelier," it said.

At its peak, the St Albans Vaccination Service team, comprising of NHS staff and volunteers, was able to vaccinate more than 2,000 patients daily with the AstraZeneca jab, and more than 1,600 patients each day with the Pfizer vaccine.

The centre jabbed thousands of arms a day at its peak but is no longer required

Batchwood Hall vaccination centre

• Batchwood Hall was designed and built by Sir Edmund Beckett, later Lord Grimthorpe (1816-1905), and was bought by St Albans Council in 1935.

• It became a nightclub, Club Batchwood, in the 1980s, and the leaseholders left during the Covid restrictions.

• The vaccination team also took the vaccine out to people in care homes.

• It created drive-through clinics for clinically extremely vulnerable patients and ran clinics for patients with learning disabilities.

• There were outreach vaccination programmes within the traveller community, homeless shelters, women's refuges as well as the Islamic Centre in London Colney and sporting events.

• The team vaccinated 43 people over the age of 100 - the oldest was 105 and six people aged 103 attended in person.

Many of those arriving for their jabs had happy memories of the building, with one 81-year-old grandmother returning to the venue of her wedding reception.

The clinical commissioning group said: "One couple came on their wedding anniversary of marrying at Batchwood Hall, others remembered afternoon teas and more recently dancing and shots of a different kind."

After the centre closes, anyone aged 18 or above can either book through the National Booking System or go to one of the walk-in vaccination clinics set up across Hertfordshire.