Perched high above Kingussie sits the former St Vincent’s Hospital, empty and vulnerable to the attentions of vandals since it closed in 2021. It was replaced by the new Badenoch and Strathspey Community Hospital at Aviemore.
The history of the hospital spans more than a century. It first opened in 1901 as the Grampian Sanatorium, founded by Dr Walter de Watteville who had already begun treating patients on the open-air principle in 1898 at his home ‘Sonnhalde’. De Watteville initially added a wing to his house, with separate entrance. This has some claim to being the first privately instituted TB sanatorium in Scotland.
There was sufficient demand for treatment that de Watteville was able to build a larger sanatorium in 1900 which was opened in June 1901. It occupied a large site, of ten acres, laid out with walks – gentle exercise being part of the ‘treatment’ for TB. Patients were also thought to benefit from inhaling the scent of pine trees – of which there were many in the surrounding woods.
The new sanatorium was designed by the local architect A. Mackenzie, with Alexander Cattanach as the mason. It has a south-easterly aspect, the original bedrooms for the patients all on this side of the building with corridors behind. Their rooms had stained and polished wood floors, walls painted with ‘duresco’ (a water-based paint) and had rounded angles. The furniture was also specially designed. At the ends of the building on the ground floor were larger rooms used as dining and day-rooms. The kitchens were in a service wing at the rear, along with staff accommodation.
The distinctive round-arched windows no longer have their original glazing which were sash windows with a ‘rounded revolving fanlight’ above. Some of the rooms at the centre of the building gave out onto a veranda or balcony, via French doors. The engraved view published in Walters’ Sanatoria for Consumptives (below) shows patients lying on camp beds on the uncovered veranda in front of the hospital. The nature of the revolving fanlights can also be seen: they tilted on side pivots.
The sanatorium was heated by open fires, lighting was by electricity. Dr de Watteville acted as the medical superintendent and his wife as matron, helped by a medical assistant, two nurses and domestic staff. [F. R. Walters, Sanatoria for Consumptives, 3rd edn. 1905, pp.189-90.]
The inspiration behind the design of the sanatorium, and the treatment conducted within it, was Nordrach Sanatorium in the Black Forest of Germany run by Dr Otto Walther. A small clutch of sanatoria were named after the German hospital in Britain – including Nordrach on Dee, Banchory (later Glen-o-Dee Hospital), and Nordrach upon Mendip, near Bristol.
In 1917 de Watteville sold the sanatorium to Dr Felix Savy, who increased the capacity of the hospital slightly – from 18 to 27 beds by 1926. Artificial pneumothorax was made available from around 1926, Dr Savy being a pioneer of this surgical technique to collapse the infected lung. He also introduced X-ray equipment, UV light and laboratory facilities.
In 1934 the sanatorium was purchased by the Sisters of the Order of the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, although Dr Savy remained as the physician in charge. The Sisters had the rear extension built as living quarters, and created a chapel above the main entrance. The photographer, Oscar Marzaroli, was a patient in the 1940s. The sanatorium was not transferred to the NHS in 1948, although it was used for NHS patients for a few years until the demand for beds for TB cases declined. By the mid-1950s the decline in TB led to many former sanatoria being adapted to new uses. St Vincent’s became a home for the elderly in 1956. As the residents increasingly required nursing care, by the early 1970s the Order planned to create wards for geriatric patients (this may relate to work by J. G. Quigley and Partners, architects, Glasgow noted on the Dictionary of Scottish Architects for 1969-71 for the Sisters.). The interior was remodelled in 1973-4 to convert the ground floor into a geriatric hospital unit, run by Grampian Health Board, while the upper floor remained a residential home run by Highland Regional Council. As part of the works, a large new day room was created at the west side, the old fireplaces and chimneys removed. It was still run by the Sisters of the Order, but finding staff was proving increasingly difficult and in 1986 the home hospital was bought by the NHS. The upper floor was converted to provide a psychogeriatric unit in 1988-9. [J. C. Leslie adn S. J. Leslie, The Hospitals of Badenoch & Strathspey, 2022.]