The Middlesex Hospital Annexe, formerly the Strand Union Workhouse, is being redeveloped by University College Hospitals Charity (UCLHC) and will be known as The Bedford Passage Development.

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The site comprises eight buildings, all varying dates of construction with the earliest, dating back to between 1775 and 1778, being used as a workhouse for the parish of St Paul, Covent Garden. The site was subsequently modified and became the Strand Union Workhouse in c.1836. After further construction it became the Central London Sick Asylum in 1873. In 1913 further expansion took place at the site and it was used as the Cleveland Street Infirmary. The site was then acquired in 1924 by the Middlesex Hospitaland used as the Out Patients department from 1926 until 2006 when the hospital closed. The site has since remained mainly vacant since then.

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The main building on the site The Workhouse, was listed as Grade II in 2011. Research revealed that Charles Dickens, who lived nearby, used the workhouse as the inspiration for his 1837 novel ‘Oliver Twist’. In addition, following a severe outbreak of cholera in the summer of 1854, Florence Nightingale was transferred from a hospital in Harley Street to work at the Middlesex Hospital.