St Hugh’s College, Oxford was converted to a Military Hospital for Head Injuries for the duration of the Second World War. Sir Hugh Cairns, Consultant Neurosurgeon to the British Army, established his headquarters here in 1939. By the end of the war, his pioneering work had helped over 13,000 military services patients, as well as informing the work of the Mobile Neurosurgical Units which operated on the field of battle. No visible reminder of its former role remains at St Hugh’s today, but the work carried out here had an important effect on the future of neurological practice.