The Grove Family – Three generations of Doctors who served the community of St Ives for 85 years.
The merger of Cromwell Place Surgery and The Old Exchange Surgery in April 2020 resulted in a new name being given to the practice, Grove Medical Practice. The name Grove Medical Practice was chosen to recognise the role of three generations of the Grove family in medical practice in St Ives.
Richard Grove was one of the early Doctors in St Ives and set up practice in the mid 1860’s in the Broadway. In 1881, he and his family moved to the part of the present building in Cromwell Place, then called Slepe House. He was the first Medical Officer of Health in the town and he was in practice in St Ives for 32 years.
On his death in 1895, his eldest son, Reginald took over the practice and also the role of Medical Officer of Health. Like his father, he lived and worked in Cromwell Place. He was a traditional family doctor and died in 1948, shortly after the beginning of the National Health Service and having been in practice in St Ives for 53 years.
His eldest son, Bill Grove, joined the practice in the 1930’s but sadly had to step down before his father’s death due to ill health. The practice then passed to Dr Eric Dansie and Dr John Musson.
Today, there are relatives of Dr Richard Grove practicing medicine in the UK, USA, Vietnam and Australia, so the medical tradition lives on.
Grove Medical Practice occupies a prime position in St. Ives town centre. We are well served both by public transport, the town bus station is close by and there is ample parking in several car parks within a very short distance of the practice.
The practice registers new patients who live in St.Ives and the villages of Fenstanton, Hilton, Houghton with Wyton, Hemingford Abbots and Hemingford Grey, Needingworth, Holywell, Colne, Bluntisham and Earith.
On 1st April 2020 Cromwell Place Surgery merged with The Old Exchange surgery in East Street, to become Grove Medical Practice.