Brechin Infirmary and St Drostan’s House

May 13, 2019December 23, 2022 / Harriet Richardson / Leave a comment

*Prospect of Brechin (detail), by John Slezer from* Theatrum Scotiae, 1693. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland

On a gloriously sunny day in April, I visited Brechin, primarily to see the cathedral with its extraordinary round tower, but while there walked over to Infirmary Street to see what remains of a group of buildings that for so many years took care of the health and welfare of the city: the now-closed Brechin Infirmary, largely of the 1860s, a 1970s Health Centre, the former poorhouse (built in the 1870s) and the remnants of the former infectious diseases hospital (late 1890s). Tucked in behind is a post-war hospital block, added to the site in the early 1960s, and sheltered housing built in the 2000s. This group also lies conveniently between the railway station to the south, and the cemetery to the north.

*Extract from the second edition OS map, revised in 1901, reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland*

Brechin Infirmary opened as a general voluntary hospital in 1869, but the sick poor in the city had earlier been served by a dispensary, established in about 1824 following a bequest of £50 from a Mrs Speid of Ardovie. The dispensary supplied medicine and medical attendance to the poor for free, and by the mid-1840s was said to be in a prosperous state. But the new Poor Law had placed all sick paupers under superintendence of the local Parochial Board, which had appointed a surgeon to carry out that task. As a result, ‘only some six or eight patients remain upon the dispensary lists’.[1] Over the years the dispensary’s work diminished, until it closed altogether.

*Extract from the OS Town Plan of Brechin, 1852. The Poorhouse is on City Road near the corner with Damacre Road. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland*

The first poor law institution in Brechin was opened in 1853 in City Road, locally usually known either as the almshouse, poor’s house, or parochial lodging house. It was in a large converted tenement which the Board purchased for £300 in 1852 from a Mr Thomson, writer, of Montrose. A later report suggested that the building had originally been built as a cotton factory, but that when this business failed it was sold to Mr Thomas who converted it into a dwelling house. [2]

In July 1864 plans for a hospital were first made public, after the late James Don, Esquire, of Bearhill, bequeathed £1,000 for the purpose of establishing a hospital or infirmary and dispensary in Brechin on condition that a further £1,000 was raised within 18 months by the local community. Subscriptions to the cause quickly mounted to more than £3,000, including £100 from Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, 2nd Baronet, and his brother, the Hon. R. J. Jejeebhoy. (Perhaps they were approached by someone local, the Jejeebhoys wealth and generous philanthropy, and associations with Britain, were well known.) The Earl of Dalhousie (Fox Maule-Ramsay, the 11th Earl) offered the site – considered open healthy and with convenient access by three different roads – at an annual feu-duty of £4 per acre.

*Main front of Brechin Infirmary, photographed in April 2019 © H. Richardson*

The hospital was designed by William Fettis or Fetties, and construction was carried out by local builders and craftsmen: Mr Alexander Crabb, mason; Messrs W. Black & Sons, carpenter work; John Lindsay & Son, slaters; J. & J. Thomson, plasterers; and C. Middleton & Sons, plumbers. Their tenders for the work amounted to just over £1,500. [3]

*Photograph taken on a less sparkling day, back in the late 1980s © H. Richardson*

The foundation stone was laid with full Masonic honours in May 1867 when building work was already well underway, and the first storey all but completed. The infirmary building was described at the time as ‘of the plainest description, being wholly formed of rubble work’ apart from the front wall which was ashlar. The plainness of the building was to be alleviated by the garden in front, which was to be finely laid out as pleasure grounds studded with shrubs. A kitchen garden was destined for the rear half of the garden. [4]

*West elevation of the infirmary, with later day room in the foreground, photographed in April 2019 © H. Richardson*

In May 1869 the new infirmary was formally opened by the Earl of Dalhousie. The 1901 map shows the infirmary before it was enlarged in the 1920s, with its principal front facing west, and indicating that the garden had been laid out on that side. (The garden was later built over for the present health centre.) Four wards occupied the long north-south wing, two on each floor on either side of the central entrance and with up-to-date cross-ventilated W.C.s, suggesting an awareness of the relatively recent developments in pavilion-plan hospitals on the lines recommended by Florence Nightingale. Two wards were for accidents and two for fever patients.

*View of the infirmary looking west to the rear of the earliest part of the building. Photographed in April 2019 © H. Richardson*

A major renovation, alterations and additions were carried out in 1928-9, for which the architect was David Wishart Galloway. During the work the patients were moved out to Maulesden House. The cost was largely met by a donation of £10,650 from the trustees of the late Sir James Duncan of Kinnettles. Plans were submitted to the Dean of Guild Court in September 1928. It was at this time that the new main entrance was formed, set in the gabled bay, treated as a pediment with oculus and framed by giant pilasters. The new accommodation included four private wards. The contractors were: joiners, Messrs W. Black & Son, Ltd, Brechin; plumbers, Mr J. Davidson; plasterwork, Messrs Burness Montrose; mason, Mr Rennie Brechin; slater, Mr D. Scott, Brechin. In December 1929, following the death of the architect David Galloway in a motorcycle accident, the infirmary directors appointed Maclaren, Soutar & Salmond, who had taken over Galloway’s practice, to see through the reconstruction. [5]

*View of the rear and west of Brechin Infirmary, with the health centre to the right, photographed around 1988-9 ©* *H. Richardson*

On the vacant land to the east of the infirmary a new poorhouse was built in 1879-80 to designs by James Baxter, architect, Brechin, to accommodate about 80 paupers, 51 being transferred from the old building but the Parochial Board intended also to move most of those receiving outdoor relief into the poorhouse.

*South elevation of St Drostan’s House, the former Brechin poorhouse. Photographed in April 2019 © H. Richardson*

It is in a similarly plain style to the infirmary, although the Brechin Advertiser was curiously impressed with its appearance, describing it as a ‘magnificent building’ that was an ornament and a credit to the town. The article continued:

Poor-houses have too frequently been poor in every sense of the term – poor in architecture, poor in conveniences, poor in comfort. It will be seen, however, … that the new Poor-house of Brechin possesses not only the external appearance, but all the internal appliances of a modern mansion-house. [6]

*Another photograph from that gloomy day in the 1980s, of the former poorhouse next to Brechin Infirmary ©* *H. Richardsn*

According to the same article, the architect’s plan for the poorhouse had been commended for its simplicity of design and conveniences and comfort in its internal arrangements. These comprised a room on either side of the entrance door for the Matron, and beyond these separate stairs to the upper floor. A corridor ran the length of the building on both floors. On the ground floor, on the north side of the central corridor, were two large sick rooms and two sitting rooms, and on the south side a spacious dining hall. Store rooms and bathrooms were placed at either end, a large kitchens was at the east end of the dining room. On the upper floor were the sleeping wards, and here the corridor had a glazed partition half way along separating the males from the females.

*Rear view of St Drostan’s House, looking west, behind is the eastern end of Brechin Infirmary. Photographed in April 2019 © H. Richardson*

The out buildings included a probationary ward, washing-houses, ash pits, and coal cellars. Once the new poorhouse had been completed and the inmates moved from the old building in City Road, the latter was put up for sale. It was bought by Mr J. L. Gordon, the Town Clerk, for £541, on behalf of the Town Council, with the intention of converting it into a model lodging house. [7]

*Block to the rear of St Drostan’s House, one of the original out-buildings. Photographed in April 2019 © H. Richardson*

A further report in the Brechin Advertiser following the opening of the new poorhouse, continued the enthusiastic spirit of the previous account, noting the ‘tasteful and imposing appearance’ of the main frontage, and approving of the introduction of mullioned windows to relieve the ‘baldness that might otherwise have characterise the house’. The garden had been laid out under the superintendence of Mr Annandale of the nearby Den Nursery, and the contractors were listed as: Mr J. Cribb, mason; Messrs Black & Son, joiners; Mr Masson, plasterer; Messrs Kinnear & Son, plumbers; Mr W. Bruce, painter; and Mr J. Davidson, slater – all of Brechin. [8]

South front of the former poorhouse or Parochial Lodging House, with the mullioned windows on the upper floor in the gabled bays. The bay windows on the ground floor are post-war additions. When new sheltered housing was built to the rear in the early 2000s the former poorhouse was converted to offices, but is currently empty. Photographed in April 2019 © H. Richardson

The next development of the medical services in Brechin was the establishment of an isolation hospital in the 1890s. Infectious cases, or ‘fever patients’ had up until then been cared for in the infirmary, but in times of epidemic there was insufficient accommodation there. In February 1893 an outbreak of smallpox at the Forfar and Brechin Railway huts at a time when the fever ward in the infirmary was already full prompted the Police Commission in Brechin – responsible for public health – to meet with the directors of the Infirmary to consider providing either a permanent or temporary hospital for infectious diseases. In 1895 the Brechin Police Commissioners joined forces with the District Committee and were on the search for a site. They discussed commissioning plans and estimates for a new hospital. The site must have been acquired by the end of August 1897 when an advertisement was placed in the Dundee Evening Telegraph for ‘Bricklayers (a Few Good) wanted. Apply New Hospital, Brechin’. [9]

*Detail from the 25-inch OS map revised in 1922, showing the infectious diseases hospital to the north-west of the Infirmary. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland*

The plans were drawn up by T. Martin Cappon, architect, Dundee. A caretaker was appointed in 1898, the building work probably completed by then. The hospital comprised three detached blocks, probably the administrative building, which would also have contained some staff accommodation, and two ward blocks.

*Probably a block from the former isolation hospital, to the rear of Brechin Infirmary, photographed in April 2019 © H. Richardson*

Another building on its own to the north (pictured above and below), may have been the service block containing disinfecting chambers, with boilers and disinfectors, wash-house, mortuary and stores. Thomas Martin Cappon went on to design the Forfar County Hospital in 1899. [10]

*Surviving building from the former infectious diseases hospital. Photographed in April 2019 © H. Richardson*

Post-War Changes

By 1940 the infectious diseases hospital had been converted into accommodation for the aged and infirm, but by 1950 it had been closed. The Eastern Regional Hospital Board recommended retaining the buildings for accommodation for nurses and for storage, releasing a hut at the infirmary which might be used for 30 chronic sick patients. [11]

Extract from the 1:1,250 OS map revised in 1965. This shows the 1920s extension to the infirmary, and the large post-war addition pictured below. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland

At the infirmary itself the largest addition since the 1920s was made in 1958-60, when the large wing to the north was added. A bequest of nearly £14,000 from Mrs Agnes Pederson, a Brechin woman in America, was used to provide new kitchen premises, out-patients’ and physiotherapy departments, alterations to staff quarters and a day room for geriatric patients between the new accommodation blocks. [12]

*A spliced photo showing the south-east front of the post-war hospital extension. Photographed in April 2019 © H. Richardson*

The health centre was built in about 1971, and was the first to be built in Angus.[13]

See also RCAHMS, National Monuments Record of Scotland, drawings collection, for the infectious diseases hospital and www.workhouses.org for St Drostan’s House.

Montrose, Arbroath and Brechin Review; and Forfar and Kincardineshire advertiser, 13 Feb 1846, p.5
Brechin Advertiser, 14 Sept 1852, p.2: 2 March 1880, p.2
Dundee Courier, 23 Aug 1864, p.4; 12 Dec 1865, p.4; 19 Dec 1866, p.4: Dundee Advertiser, 29 Dec 1864, p.3
Montrose, Arbroath and Brechin review; and Forfar and Kincardineshire advertiser, 19 April 1867, p.4: Dundee Courier, 6 May 1867, p.4
Brechin Advertiser, 5 June 1928, p.5: Aberdeen Press & Journal, 20 Sept 1928, p.5: Dundee Courier, 10 Oct 1928, p.5; 11 Dec 1929, p.6: Dundee Evening Telegraph, 11 Dec 1929, p.10
Brechin Advertiser, 2 March 1880, p.2
Brechin Advertiser, 16 March 1880, p.2
Brechin Advertiser, 16 March 1880, p.3
Dundee Courier, 1 Feb 1893, p.3: Aberdeen Press & Journal, 12 April 1893, p.5; 19 Aug 1896, p.6: Dundee Advertiser, 10 April 1895, p.2; 23 Oct 1896, p.2: Dundee Evening Telegraph, 25 Aug 1897, p.3
Dundee Courier, 6 July 1897, p.3; 4 Oct 1899, p.4: Peterhead Sentinel and General Advertiser for Buchan District, 28 Aug 1898, p.4
Dundee Courier, 26 Jan 1950, p.4
Brechin Advertiser, 2 Dec 1958, p.5
Aberdeen P&J, 16 Feb 1971, p.31

The Western Isles Hospital, Stornoway, and its forebears

March 3, 2019May 1, 2023 / Harriet Richardson / Leave a comment

Memorial stained-glass panel in the Western Isles Hospital, depicting the Lewis Hospital on the right and the County Hospital to the left, both closed when the new general hospital opened. © H. Richardson

The Outer Hebrides are served by one general hospital in Stornoway on the Island of Lewis – the Western Isles Hospital. It was designed and built by the Common Services Agency and opened to patients in 1992. The hospital was designed to replace two much older hospitals: the Lewis Hospital and the County Hospital.

*The Western Isles Hospital, photographed in January 2019, © H. Richardson*

The County Hospital had been built by the Red Cross during the First World War as the Lewis Sanatorium, and after the war was transferred to the local authority. The Lewis Hospital was built in 1893-6 on Goathill Road. Before the advent of the National Health Service, there was also Mossend Fever Hospital, built by Stornoway Town Council in 1876, which contained 12 beds, and the Lewis Combination Poorhouse, opened in 1897, which took in sick paupers and manageable cases of the mentally infirm.

*Memorial plaques from the Lewis Hospital preserved in the present hospital. © H. Richardson*

In 1904 the Lewis Hospital also contained twelve beds, but its capacity was increased to twenty when the building was enlarged in 1912. A consultant surgeon was appointed in 1924, partly funded by the Scottish Board of Health under the Highlands and Islands Medical Service. A further grant from the Board helped to fund an extension to the hospital that opened in 1928. At the time, this was heralded as the first step in the realisation of a perfect hospital service for the Outer Hebrides as envisaged by the Dewar Commission of 1912, which first outlined the Highlands and Islands Medical Service. Seen by many as a precursor of the National Health Service itself, the Service extended state-funding of health care beyond the responsibilities for the care of the destitute sick, the mentally ill and the control of infectious diseases.

*Part of the former County Hospital, photographed in September 1993, reproduced by permission of Kathryn Morrison © K. Morrison*

The works done in the 1920s included improvements to the water and electricity supplies, the installation of central heating to replace peat and coal fires, X-ray plant, a new operating theatre, light treatment – including artificial sunlight treatment – enlarged kitchens and improvements to staff accommodation.

With a population of over 32,000 on Lewis and Harris, scattered over a wide area, the difficulties of communications and the different way of life of the people presented the singular circumstances necessitating state intervention. According to the reporter for The Scotsman:

‘Until the advent of the motor car, medical practice in these parts was on a very limited scale, and to this day the superstitious practices of former generations still linger in the hereditary healers and village bone-setters. Until quite recent days the idea of an hospital universally held was that of a place where people went only to die. As a result, the mere suggestion of hospital treatment was opposed with the same vigour that city patients resist the poorhouse.’ [1]

This may have been true, but the annual report of the hospital back in 1899 painted a rather different picture; 70 patients had been treated during the past year, of whom only three died. The yearly number of admittances was increasing, most being from the island, but 18 patients were ‘strangers … whose home residence extended from Reikjavik, in Iceland, to Sidmouth, on the Devonshire coast’. Nearly all of these were fishermen or sailors. In 1923 fewer than 100 cases were admitted to hospital, but in the following year, after the appointment of the consultant surgeon, 375 patients were treated and 350 operations performed.

*The former Lewis Hospital, photographed in September 1993, reproduced by permission of Kathryn Morrison © K. Morrison*

In 1964 the Secretary of State for Scotland appointed a committee to review the general medical services in the Highlands and Islands. Under the NHS the areas formerly covered by the Highlands and Islands Medical Scheme were now administered by three separate regional hospital boards: the North Eastern, based on Aberdeen, took care of Orkney and Shetland; the Western, based in Glasgow, oversaw the counties of Argyll and Bute; and the Northern, centred on Inverness, took care of everywhere else. The Regional Hospital Boards appointed boards of management to run groups of hospitals (or, in some cases, individual hospitals). The Lews and Harris board of management was responsible for the Lewis and County Hospitals in Stornoway.

*The County Hospital, from the 1:1,250 OS Map revised in 1964. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland*

Then, as now, one of the biggest challenges to the health service was providing for the elderly, and one of the inherent flaws of the NHS was (and still is) the division of responsibility between the NHS and local authorities. In 1966 the Chairman of the Northern Regional Hospital Board commented on ‘the nebulous boundary’ between the two, noting that where responsibility is shared between two types of authority ‘each of whom would have no difficulty in finding good alternative uses for any resources currently required for care of the elderly, there is a natural inclination for each to feel that the other ought to carry more of the burden’. [2]

*The Lewis Hospital as extended, from the 1:1,250 OS Map revised in 1964. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland*

Between 1948 and 1960 around £100,000 was spent on additions to the Lewis Hospital. In 1950 work had begun on a new maternity unit, nursing staff quarters and an out-patient department. In the mid-1960s Lewis Hospital had 83 beds, 46 for general surgery, 24 for general medicine and 13 for maternity cases. the County Hospital had 89 beds, 50 for the chronic sick, 35 for respiratory tuberculosis and four for infectious diseases.

Following the re-orgnisation of the NHS in 1974 which abolished the old regions and introduced a larger number of new area health boards, the islands of Harris and Lewis were managed by the Western Isles Health Board. In 1978 the Board outlined the need for a new district general hospital, on the site of the Lewis Hospital, but recognising that this was likely to be a long-term goal, it proposed that in the mean time a new operating theatre should be built. The Common Services Agency (CSA) had by then already drawn up a development plan for the Lewis Hospital, but the medical staff in Lewis criticised some of its elements: the theatre was not on the same level as the main surgical ward, the out-patient department was too small, and generally the plans left no room for further expansion. The Aberdeen Press & Journal reported that the CSA apologised for the plans, explaining they were only basic block plans aimed at demonstrating that it was possible to add the required facilities to the existing site, incurring as little interference to the ongoing work of the hospital as possible. The CSA ‘were not proud of the plans but were open to suggestions’. [3]

By May 1980 the Health Board had drawn up a list of their requirements for the new hospital, suggesting at least 280 beds be provided, comprising 30 medical beds – including provision for infectious diseases and intensive nursing; 48 surgical beds, including 8 for orthopaedic cases, 10 gynaecological beds, 8 for children plus four cots, two for the staff sick bay, 14 maternity, 90 geriatric beds and 30 beds for acute psychiatric patients.

The inclusion of beds for psychiatric patients reflected current NHS policy and the terms of the Mental Health (Scotland) Act of 1960 (and the Mental Health Act of 1959 covering England and Wales), . The new network of district general hospitals were to cater for general medical, surgical and psychiatric patients. This policy had evolved from a recognition that the existing mental hospitals did not provide the best environment for new cases. This was in part due to the institutional character of the large Victorian mental hospitals, but also the difficulties of attracting good mental health nursing staff, together with the stigma attached to mental illness in general and the old ‘lunatic asylums’ in particular. In the Western Isles the problems were exacerbated by the distance to the only psychiatric hospital serving the whole of the Highlands and Islands: Craig Dunain Hospital at Inverness. In 1979 more than 100 patients from the islands were in care at Craig Dunain. The new hospital in Stornoway was therefore to include a psychiatric unit, though links to Craig Dunain were to be retained given the number of specialist psychiatric fields.

*Main entrance of the Western Isles Hospital, photographed in January 2019 © H. Richardson*

Formal approval to build the new hospital complex was granted in 1986, and work was underway by 1991. It took two years to build and cost £32m. Although the first patients were admitted in September 1992, the official opening took place the following March, performed by Prince Charles (as Lord of the Isles). The Prince was welcomed to the hospital by the chairman of the Western Isles Health Board, Marie MacMillan, and was given a comprehensive tour of the facilties and chatted to staff and patients. He then unveiled a plaque in the main concourse area. [4]

References:

The Scotsman, 4 May 1928, p.8
Parliamentary Papers: Scottish Home and Health Department, General Medical Services in the Highlands and Islands, Report of a committee appointed by the secretary of State for Scotland, June 1967. Cmnd. 3257
Aberdeen Press & Journal, 24 May 1978, p.26
Slàinte, NHS Western Isles Staff Magazine, Winter 2012, p.4

Sources:

North Star and Farmers’ Chronicle, 23 Feb 1899, p.6: Dundee Courier, 3 Feb 1904, p.1:: Department of Health for Scotland, Annual Reports:Aberdeen Press & Journal, 21 Feb 1979, p.27; 16 May 1979: The Guardian, 15 Oct 1986, p.31: Nicola MacArthur, ‘The origins and development of the Lewis Hospitals’, Hektoen International, A journal of Medical Humanities, Spring 2017: NHS Eileanan Siar Western Isles 70 Years

Netherlea Hospital, Newport-on-Tay

February 23, 2019May 1, 2023 / Harriet Richardson / 20 Comments

Netherlea Hospital has been demolished. This is a slightly revised post from 2017.

In March 2017 the Dundee Courier announced plans to demolish the former Netherlea Hospital in Newport, Fife, and replace it with a development of luxury houses and flats. Planning permission was granted in August 2018, and work clearing the site was underway in February 2019. The Law Property Group, on behalf of the developers, suggested that the development would be attractive to locals wishing to downsize. But with the upper price of £650,000 this seems disingenuous. A local councillor was quoted as being ‘surprised’ by the proposed price range. On a development promising between 35 and 45 homes, the cheapest property, a two-bed flat, would cost £275,000.

*The former Netherlea Hospital, photographed in July 2018 © H. Richardson*

Netherlea was built as a domestic villa, for the local shipowner, Andrew Leitch, in about 1893 to designs by the Dundee architect Thomas Martin Cappon. It is a large red sandstone building in simple Tudor style, of two storeys and attics, with stick on half-timbering in the gables.

*Extract from the 25-inch OS map surveyed in 1893. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland*

Andrew Leitch was a prominent figure in Dundee, and was particularly associated with the development of the harbour. Born in Fife, he started out as a colliery clerk, later moving to Dundee as the agent for Halbeath Colliery. From there he progressed to being a coal merchant, then exporter, also establishing the Dundee Loch Line Steam Shipping Company. He married in 1859 Isabella Thomson, with whom he had eleven children. She died, at Struan Inn, Banks of Garry, following a carriage accident in July 1897. Andrew Leitch remarried when he was sixty years old in 1902. His second wife, Janet Elizabeth née Smith, became a notable local figure, a supporter of women’s rights, the National Union of Women Workers and many philanthropic causes. She was also the first woman to be elected to the local School Board in Newport. She died in 1913, and her husband outlived her by just three years.

In 1917 the contents of the house were auctioned, at that time the house comprised: drawing-room, parlour, dining room, billiard room and hall, 10 bed and dressing-rooms, as well as laundry and kitchen apartments. By 1936 Netherlea was the home of David Hamilton Brackenridge, who, like Leitch, was a member of the Dundee Harbour Trust. Brackenridge was born in Cupar in 1871, and was educated at Madras College, St Andrews, and Dundee High School. He spent 21 years in Calcutta as representative of the Dundee jute merchants, J. C. Duffus & Company. On his return from India he became the local agent for Duffus. He died at Netherlea in January 1939 and a month later his widow had put the house up for sale. The accommodation was listed as comprising: on the ground floor, four public rooms, billiard room, cloakroom and lavatory, kitchen and usual offices; on the first floor, five bedrooms, two bathrooms and maids’ sitting-room and bathroom; on the second floor, three maids’ bedrooms and box room. It also had a modern garage, greenhouse and outhouses, was in excellent condition, electrically fitted throughout, and the grounds tastefully laid out.

Presumably the house failed to find a buyer, the contents were sold about a year later, but in 1945 Netherlea was offered to Fife County Council, and its future as a hospital discussed by the Public Health Committee. Before then, during the Second World War, it had been occupied by officers of the Norwegian Air Force. It became a maternity hospital under the NHS with 17 beds, an isolation room and nursery, plus 13 staff bedrooms, the conversion to a hospital was carried out by the architect Frank Pride, of Walker and Pride to plans drawn up in 1946.

Although officially opened on 21 July 1948, by the end of September it had yet to admit any expectant mothers. Lieutenant Colonel Noel Baxter of New Gilston, the county convenor for the East Fife Hospital Group Board of Management, visited the hospital expecting it to be up and running and was shocked to find this was not the case. Although Netherlea had a doctor, matron and nursing staff, it could not open to patients because there was no cook. Until one could be appointed, patients were being sent to Dundee, Perthshire or even Edinburgh – ‘all over the shop’ according to the County Medical Officer of Health. It opened not very long afterwards, presumably once a suitable cook had been found.

In 1974 Netherlea became a long-stay hospital for the elderly. Designated a community hospital in 1997, it closed in 2011. Since then it has been boarded up and its condition steadily deteriorated. There were some who wished to see the building retained, but despite its significance in the local history of the area, it will soon be demolished.

Sources:
Dundee Advertiser, 3 Feb 1893, p.5: St Andrew’s Citizen, 17 July 1897, p.8: Dundee Evening Telegraph, 10 May 1916, p.2; 4 June 1936, p.5; 30 Jan 1939, p.5, 4 Sept 1945, p.8: Dundee People’s Journal, 13 May 1916 p.8, has a photograph of Andrew Leitch: Dundee Courier, 5 Dec 1913, p. 6; 17 April 1917, p.1: 30 Dec 1931, p.8; 24 March 1939, p.16; 28 Sept 1948, p.2: The Courier, 31 March 2017

The first Glasgow Royal Infirmary

October 26, 2018May 1, 2023 / Harriet Richardson / 4 Comments

*Glasgow Royal Infirmary, from the Wellcome Collection, CC BY 4.0*

The old buildings of Glasgow Royal Infirmary have long since been demolished. It was there that Joseph Lister pioneered antiseptic surgery in the 1860s. But by then the original part of the infirmary designed by Robert Adam was seventy years old, and had been added to and extended many times.

In comparison with the other Scottish infirmaries which were in existence by the end of the eighteenth century, such as those at Aberdeen or Dumfries, Adam’s design for the Glasgow infirmary was far more ambitious and its impressive principal elevation was a dignified expression of civic pride. Its grandeur and the choice of architect suggest a degree of one-upmanship. However, Robert Adam was not the infirmary managers’ first choice and he was only brought in, almost by chance, following the death of the first appointed architect, William Blackburn. Blackburn had made his name in London when he won a competition to design a national prison in 1782. He became best known as a prison architect, but he was also surveyor to both St Thomas’s and Guy’s hospitals in London. Michael Port succinctly captures Blackburn’s character: ‘Corpulent in figure, medium in height, Presbyterian in religion, Blackburn was noted … for his candour and modesty’.[1] Blackburn was on his way to Glasgow to discuss a new goal there when he died suddenly at Preston, Lancashire. Many of his uncompleted works were taken over by his brother-in-law, William Hobson, but Hobson would not take on the infirmary commission. Fortuitously, Robert Adam was in Glasgow around this time overseeing the construction of the Trades House, in Glassford Street, and was conveniently placed to step into Blackburn’s shoes.

*Main elevation of the Trades House, photographed in 2012, by Trades House of Glasgow*

As Glasgow grew and found prosperity in the late eighteenth century, the need for an infirmary became pressing. There was the Town’s Hospital on the banks of the Clyde, but there may well have been a desire to have an infirmary closer to the University, the college buildings at this time were near to Cathedral. Amongst those who came together to found the hospital, two key figures were George Jardine, lecturer in Logic and Alexander Stevenson, Professor of Medicine at the university. Support also came from the city’s leading merchants, merchant and trade guilds, and the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons. The first meeting of subscribers to the new institution was held in June 1787.

Robert Adam was requested to produce plans for the infirmary in November 1791, and more particularly to design it in such a way that it could be built in phases, just as his father had been instructed by the managers of the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh in the 1730s. His first designs were presented in October 1791, but were rejected as being too expensive at a cost of just over £8,725. Adam was asked to make the design plainer. This he succeeded in doing, reducing the cost to £7,185 10s, with the further option of having a rusticated or plain basement. As he offered the rusticated basement at no added cost, that was the version the managers chose. [2]

*Glasgow Royal Infirmary, R. Chapman (1812)* The picture of Glasgow or a Stranger’s Guide *(2nd Ed.) Glasgow, facing p.105.* Public Domain

By the end of December estimates were being advertised for the building tradesmen. In February 1792 the Infirmary received its Royal Charter, but in early March Robert Adam died, leaving his younger brother James to continue as architect to the Infirmary. The building contract was awarded to Morrison and Burns, on their estimate of £7,900 and the foundation stone was laid with full Masonic honours in May.

Detail of Fleming’s map of Glasgow of 1807 showing the original extent of the infirmary and its proximity to the cathedral. Note also the circular area in front of the infirmary, which was part of Adam’s original design. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland.

Death continued to shadow the new building as James Adam died in 1794, the year that the first patients were admitted: an ironic echo of Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary, where William Adam had died in 1748, the year that his infirmary building was completed. When the Glasgow infirmary first opened, not all the wards were furnished, and the second report makes it clear that other parts of the hospital were not exactly finished. In 1796 money was spent on conducting water from the Monkland canal by lead pipes, making a reservoir and erecting cisterns. Hot and cold baths were installed, a high stone wall around the grounds behind the infirmary and laying out a kitchen garden there, as well as furnishing new wards, rooms for the physician, clerk and house surgeon.

*Raphael Tuck & Sons postcard, showing the Royal Infirmary to the left of the cathedral.*

The end result did not lack the flair that one would expect from Adam. The Scots Magazine in 1809 described it as magnificent, and grandly, if not entirely accurately, claimed that ‘Its front has some resemblance to the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris’. The main façade was symmetrical with a broad, central entrance bay which was slightly advanced with canted returns. Above the entrance a typical Adam-style arched tripartite window was set within a pediment carried on coupled columns. A dome was placed at the centre, with its drum ornamented with carved swags. The only other infirmary to come near to this in richness was Gillespie Graham’s Grays Hospital in Elgin of 1815.

*Detail of Adam’s façade, photographed in 1910. Wellcome Collection CC BY 4.0*

The internal arrangements of the infirmary were not dissimilar to William Adam’s Edinburgh infirmary, though in Glasgow the building was one single range rather than the U-shaped plan in Edinburgh. On the ground floor were single cells for ‘lunatics’, and on the upper floors the wards took up the full width of the building and had opposing windows. There were separate stairs to access the wards at each end of the block, allowing for a seemly segregation of male and female patients, as well as separate access for the operating theatre, which, like Edinburgh’s was at the top of the building under the dome with ample seating for students. The 1809 Scots Magazine account was by Dr Joseph Frank who had been shown round the hospital in 1803. He noted that there were eight wards or sick rooms, two on each floor, ‘besides one underground’. The wards had twelve beds in each, standing ‘two and two in the spaces between the windows, quite close to each other’.

*Ground plan of the infirmary in 1832, the original building to the left, with the wing added in 1814-15, is to the left, and the fever block to the right. Reproduced from M. S. Buchanan,* The History of Glasgow Royal Infirmary…, *1832.*

The entrance led into a handsome porch, but he was less impressed by the rooms in the basement, the kitchen (disgustingly dirty), pantry (in bad order), laboratory (so narrow that there was scarcely room to turn around in it), apothecary’s shop (small and dark) and the warm and cold baths (the cold bath small and damp). For patients who were too weak to be able to use these baths, there were tin-plate bath tubs, which could be brought to their bedside. These had ‘the appearance of a shoe’. Quite how the the patients managed to get in or out of these contraptions puzzled the writer.

One of the Glasgow infirmary’s first physicians, Robert Cleghorn, called attention to the superior quality of the sanitary facilities, with water-closets even on the upper floor, and the use of iron bedsteads, rather than the wooden cubicles at Edinburgh. Up-to-date literature on hospitals was influential in the design, including the work of Jacques Tenon who had made a tour of hospitals and prisons in England in the 1780s for the Académie des Sciences in Paris. The report and plans produced by the Académie in 1788 had been supplied to Adam by Cleghorn himself. There are at least superficial parallels between the ward pavilions in the Académie’s plan for the Hotel Dieu in Paris and Adam’s upper-floor plans. In both the end bay contain stairs and ancillary rooms, and project forward from the central part of the range.

The operating theatre under the dome was the piece de resistance. The early historian of the infirmary, Dr Buchanan, writing in the 1830s, waxed lyrical on the beauty of the space:

The centre area is about 42 feet in circumference, and rising in a circular form all around this surgical, and clinical arena, may be remarked five ranges of high-backed steep benches, for the accommodation of at least 200 individuals. The whole of this splendid and commodious operating theatre is crowned by the large central dome … whose vertical lattices, descending to a considerable depth, thus throw the light to great advantage on the table of the operator. This beautiful termination to the edifice, which rises to the height of about 35 feet above the floor of the operation room is supported on twelve chaste pillars of the Ionic order, and by this means, as in the construction of all the other parts of the building, convenience, simplicity, and elegance, are seen mutually to harmonise and assist each other.

The first addition to the infirmary was a wing projecting north from the central bays, added in 1814-15. This provided a staff dining-room, accommodation for female servants, and additional wards for about 80 patients. Each ward had a nurse’s room and water-closet and communicated with the kitchen, apothecary’s shop, mortuary etc. in the main building. A detached block to the north-east of the main building designed as a fever hospital was built in 1828-9, designed by George Murray, architect.

*View of the Royal Infirmary from the north west, with the fever hospital to the left. Reproduced from M. S. Buchanan,* The History of Glasgow Royal Infirmary…, *1832.*

Dealing with outbreaks of infectious diseases in the rapidly expanding, and increasingly overcrowded city, was one of the main challenges for the infirmary managers. The addition of a separate fever hospital had been anticipated for some years, but funds had not been forthcoming. As the need became more acute, first rented accommodation was used and then a temporary ‘shed’ put up in the grounds. The original plans for the new block were to provide 220 beds at a cost of £2,900. But with rising building costs, these were scaled back to provide 120 beds. During later epidemics temporary accommodation had again to be found.

*The west front of the Fever block, probably photographed around 1910. From the Wellcome Collection CC-BY-4.0*

By about 1842 the detached fever hospital had been linked to the main infirmary by a further wing, shown on the OS map below. It contained a large clinical lecture room, waiting room, dispensary, inspection room and a pathological museum. David Hamilton designed a west extension built c.1839, but more research is needed to discover whether he also designed the block on the east side.

Extract from the OS large-scale Town Plans, 1857. This shows the extent of the infirmary prior to the addition of the surgical wing on the north side, which was built a little to the north of the wing shown on this map labelled ‘wards’. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland.

Around 1859 work began on the third major addition to the site: the Surgical Hospital. The additional accommodation had been under discussion for some ten to fifteen years, with opinions divided as to whether the original hospital should be further extended or a new one built in a less overcrowded part of the city. A major consideration in remaining on the spot was that a third of the infirmary’s patients came from the old city districts in the immediate vicinity, the remainder fairly evenly from the city suburbs and more distant parts of Scotland.

*Typical floor plan of the new surgical hospital, from the* Proceedings at the Opening of the New Surgical Hospital of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary…, *Glasgow, 1861.*

Plans for the new surgical wing were prepared by the architect William Clarke of Clarke and Bell. It was completed in 1861, and formally opened in May. The contractors were Mr Brownlie, mason, Messrs Lamb & Rankin, wrights, Mr Dalron, plaster work, and Mr Moffat was the clerk of works. Designed in accordance with the ‘most approved modern theories of hospital architecture’, it was an early example in Scotland of the pavilion plan, with two ward wings placed in line on either side of a central block containing the main staircase. Nurses’ rooms, sculleries, side rooms, bath rooms, water closets, and a hoist for raising and lowering patients were all placed at the extremities of the wards, while the wards themselves had opposed windows – seven on each side – destined for 24 patients, but in the first instance fitted up for a more comfortable 16. The operating theatre was, as before, at the top of the building in the centre. It was arranged in a horse-shoe shape and had tiered seats for 214 persons.

*Aerial Perspective of the Royal Infirmary, with the new surgical wing to the rear, and the fever hospital to the right, from the* Proceedings at the Opening of the New Surgical Hospital of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary…, *Glasgow, 1861.*

Ventilation and heating were key concerns in the design of large public buildings in the Victorian era. Glasgow Royal Infirmary’s superintendent, Dr McGhie, published an article in the Glasgow Medical Journal in January 1861 on the site and construction of hospitals with particular reference to the Royal in which these themes were fully explored. The new Surgical Hospital was heated by open fires, two per ward placed back-to-back, roughly in the centre of the ward. Vitiated air was carried away through a shaft containing two smoke flues and one ventilating flue for each ward except the top floor which was ventilated by four circular openings in the ceiling. An experimental heating system was fitted in one of the wards which had a heated chamber at the back of the fires into which fresh air from outside was warmed before passing into the ward.

*Photograph of the surgical wing and the adjoining fever block, from* Lister and the Lister ward in the Royal Infirmary of Glasgow : a centenary contribution, published in 1927, from Wellcome Images

Another innovation in the surgical wing was the provision of a day room on each floor for the benefit of convalescent patients. With three windows facing northwards, each day room was equipped with tables, books and ‘other means of amusement’. David Smith, the chairman of the building committee, pushed for this inclusion, arguing that recovery was facilitated by removing the patients from ‘moribund patients in the same ward’. [3] Convalescents could also benefit from the pleasure ground laid out to the north of the new building. An acre in extent it was laid out in three terraces from a design by Mr Clarke of the Botanic Gardens. A verandah was built at the upper end of the ground, 150ft by 10ft for shade and shelter.

*Extract from the OS Town Plan of Glasgow, 1892-4. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland.*

In 1887-8 a nurses’ home was built to designs by J. Baird and J. Thomson.The contractors were Alex. Muir & Sons, masons; Anderson & Henderson, wrights; Wm Davie, slater; Brown & Young, plumbers and Alex. Brown, plasterwork. The new home was markedly more comfortable than the previous accommodation, and was aimed at attracting a ‘superior class of nurses’. Situated well away from the main infirmary complex, this four storey building had views to the south over the Necropolis and the Cathedral, but was linked to the surgical wing by a covered way some 180ft long and 15ft wide with an arched roof of glass and heating so that it could double as an amenity for convalescent patients.

The Home itself had 85 nurses’ bedrooms, rooms for the superintendents, bathrooms, and a large recreation room. There was a box room to stow the nurses belongings, a wide and airy staircase ‘almost elegantly finished’. Heating was primarily by hot-water pipes, with fireplaces only in the superintendents’ rooms, and ventilation was by Tobin’s tubes. At the back of the building a tennis court was laid out: the infirmary’s Superintendent, Dr Thomas, believed strongly in the game of tennis as a ‘health-giving exercise’.[4]

*Extract from the 25-inch OS map of Glasgow, surveyed in 1892-3. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland.*

As the nineteenth century drew to a close, the condition of the older infirmary buildings became an increasing source of concern. There was a general consensus that the oldest blocks needed to be replaced, but much disagreement as to whether the infirmary should be rebuilt on a new site – as had the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary in the 1870s – or on its existing site. Queen Victoria’s jubilee in 1897 prompted the Lord Provost of Glasgow to launch a campaign to rebuild the infirmary to commemorate the Queen’s long reign. Those in favour of remaining on the the original site won the day, and over the next seventeen years the new infirmary was constructed. The map above shows the site as it was before reconstruction, the two below are from 1910, part way through the rebuilding, and 1933, when it had been completed.

*Extract from the 25-inch OS map of Glasgow, surveyed in 1910. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland.*

*Extract from the 25-inch OS map of Glasgow, surveyed in 1933. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland.*

Notes & Sources:

quoted from Michael Port’s entry on William Blackburn in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed online.
Robert Adam’s plans an elevations for the infirmary are held by the Sir John Soane Museum
Glasgow Herald, 22 May 1861, p.4
Glasgow Herald, 30 Aug 1888, p.8

Christine Stevenson Medicine and Magnificence, British Hospital and Asylum Architecture 1660-1815, Yale University Press, 2000: Buildings of Scotland, Glasgow, 1990, p.146‑7: The Builder, 29 Dec. 1900, p.592; 18 May 1907, p.604‑6: Scots Magazine, 1 May 1809, pp 333-4: Paisley Herald and Renfrewshire Advertiser, 25 May 1861, p.2

Raigmore Hospital, Inverness

September 16, 2018May 1, 2023 / Harriet Richardson / 2 Comments

Inverness’s general hospital at Raigmore is the largest and only acute hospital in the NHS Highland’s estate, serving patients from a huge area. It was designed in the post-war era as one of the new National Health Service’s centralised district general hospitals, in this instance to replace the Royal Northern Infirmary and numerous smaller hospitals, providing a full range of medical and surgical facilities, as well as specialist departments. It was constructed in two main phases in the 1960s—’70s, and ’70s—’80s, but its history begins during the Second World War.

*Raigmore Hospital, Inverness, photographed in 2009 © Copyright Richard Dorrell and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence*

Raigmore Hospital began as an Emergency Medical Scheme (EMS) hospital, one of seven large new hospitals built in Scotland for the anticipated casualties during the War. Work on the site started in 1940. The builders were James Campbell & Sons, builders, with MacDonald, joiners, and the first wards were completed in 1941. The hospital followed the standardised EMS design, but restrictions on the use of timber and steel for building construction meant that here the single‑storey, flat-roofed ward blocks were constructed of brick.

*Raigmore Hospital, Perth Road, Inverness. Oblique aerial photograph taken facing north-west, taken September 1948* © HES (Aerofilms Collection)

On the 40‑acre site, on the southern outskirts of Inverness, sixteen standard wards and one isolation block were built to provide around 670 beds. Staff quarters were located in the blocks on the north-west side of the complex, with a tennis court just to their south. At the heart of the site, between the staff quarters and the main ward huts was the admin section with the central kitchens, dining rooms, laboratories, matron’s quarters and services. An isolation block, Ward 17, was to the east of the central section. This was converted into a maternity unit in 1947, and then became a children’s ward in 1955. The buildings on the north-east side of the site were part of the Raigmore home farm.

*Block plan of Raigmore based on the OS 1:1,250 map revised in 1961.*

As with the other six war-time hospitals, Raigmore became part of the National Health Service on the appointed day in July 1948. Some new specialist departments were created, wards changed function, and additions were built – including an outpatients department in 1956. Raigmore had already become a General Training School for nursing in 1946.

Plans for a new central general hospital at Inverness formed part of the 1962 Hospital Plan drawn up by the Department of Health for Scotland. Raigmore was the obvious choice of site. The new hospital was designed to be built in two major phases of construction, and J. Gleave & Partners were appointed as architects. Phase one was commenced in May 1966, and was largely completed and opened in 1970 having cost some £1.42 million. The largest part of the new hospital was situated to the south of the main wards, comprising a low-rise complex providing outpatient, radiotherapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, pharmacy and records departments.

A standard plan for out-patients departments issued by the Scottish Home and Health department was adopted here. The architect to the Northern Regional Hospitals Board (NRHB), D. P. Hall, was part of the project team, as he was on the two other contemporary major schemes carried out by outside architects for the Board, Belford Hospital (also designed by Gleave & partners) and Craig Phadrig. All senior officers of the NRHB were also part of the team, ensuring that there was advice from administrators and medical staff. Other additions to the site at this time included a new Inverness Central School of Nursing and Post Graduate Medical Centre, built to the north of the original ward block, and nurses’ accommodation, located to the west of the old central admin area.

The second phase was approved in 1977, comprising the eight-storey ward block with operating theatres, kitchen and dining rooms, an administration block, a chapel and a works department. Work commenced in 1978, and the tower block was opened in March 1985. Further staff accommodation formed a separate contract, with three blocks of 32 bed-sitting rooms, 32 three-apartment houses and a block of two-apartment flats.

*Raigmore Hospital today.* © OpenStreetMap contributors

Gradually all the war-time buildings were demolished. Part of the cleared ground was allocated to a new maternity unit which opened in January 1988. The last huts went in 1990, the same year that a new isolation unit was completed. The fourth Maggie’s Centre in Scotland opened beside Raigmore in 2005. Situated in a green space to the south of the main hospital complex, the leaf-shaped building was designed by David Page of the Scottish architectural firm Page and Park Architets, with gardens designed by Charles Jencks.

*Maggie’s Centre, Raigmore Hospital, photographed in 2007 by TECU consulting UK. Reproduced under Creative Commons Licence CC BY-NC-ND 2.0*

In stark contrast to the EMS hospital, the central feature of Raigmore Hospital today is the multi‑storey ward‑tower, which strikes the view of all who arrive in Inverness by car from the south on the A9.

Sources

Inverness Courier, 2/11/2017 online: Glasgow Herald, 6 June 2005, p.2: Aberdeen Press & Journal, 3 May 1977, p13; 22 Sept 1979, p.2: Builder, 22 July 1960, p.174, 24 July 1964, p.201: Hospital Management, vol.34, 1971, pp 108-10: The Hospital, vol.67, 1971, p.175: PP Estimates Committee 1 (sub-committee B) 1969-70, minutes of evidence, 2382-93, 2422, 2503: J. & S. Leslie, The Hospitals of Inverness, Old Manse Books, 2017

West Highland Cottage Hospital in Oban

September 5, 2018May 1, 2023 / Harriet Richardson / 1 Comment

The cottage hospital at Oban was founded by a wealthy widow, Mrs Agnes Parr of Killiechronan, Mull, and was officially opened by her in September 1896. A competition was held for the design, which was won by the Oban-based architect and engineer George Woulfe Brenan.

*Postcard of the West Highland Cottage Hospital. The photograph may be of the opening of the hospital in 1896, although the card was not posted until 1926. © H. Richardson*

Agnes Parr had first offered £2,000 to build a cottage hospital for Oban in 1892. Such a hospital was much needed. In the 1880s an article in the influential journal The Hospital noted that Oban was not only the destination of thousands of tourists and pleasure-seekers, but the head-quarters of the fishing industry on the north-west coast, and it was to Oban that accidents at sea were most frequently brought. The only local institution for accident cases or the sick was the local poorhouse, so most patients made the long and uncomfortable journey to Glasgow.

Screen Shot 2016-03-03 at 20.14.21 — *Extract from the 2nd edition OS map, revised in 1897-8. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland*

In 1890 it seemed that Oban was to have its cottage hospital. Plans were prepared by Robert Mortimer of Westminster for an L-shaped building, funds having been provided by an anonymous donor. But two years later the Glasgow Evening Post noted that the scheme had apparently fallen through. Perhaps Agnes Parr had been involved in the earlier scheme, or was prompted by the failure of the earlier plan to take up the cause. At that point she was recently widowed, her husband, Thomas Philip Parr, having died in October 1891 at their London home in Upper Belgrave Street, Westminster, leaving her a substantial fortune.

*Detail of the postcard, showing the assembled dignitaries being addressed. The gentleman with the white beard, right of centre, resembles Colonel Malcolm in later years*

Progress on the revised scheme was less than rapid. The plans by Robert Mortimer were laid aside and a competition held for new designs. It took a few years to raise additional funds to provide an endowment to cover the hospital’s running costs, but finally the new hospital was completed in 1896.

Colonel Edward Malcolm of Poltalloch presided over the opening ceremony. He noted that the hospital committee had considered twenty-three different schemes for the hospital. The architectural competition was supposed to be anonymous, but, as so often was the case, it was won by a local architect. The hospital had two wards with five beds in each and two private wards. The plans also allowed for subsequent enlargement ‘to a considerable extent’, with the minimum of interference with the design. Heating and ventilation were supplied by E. H. Shorland & Brother of Manchester in the form of their patent grates, exhaust roof ventilators and inlet tubes.

Woulfe Brenan’s plans for enlargement were soon required, with the work put out to tender in June 1898. Further extensions were carried out in 1911 and 1934‑6, the latter by Lake Falconer who had taken over Woulfe Brenen’s practice. The 1930s work comprised an extension of one of the existing wards to provide a further six beds, and nurses’ accommodation. Lord Trent of Ardnamurchan declared the new wing open in June 1936, remarking that the hospitals was now so comfortable that illness or convalescence was now ‘almost a pleasant thing’.

It was at the West Highland Cottage Hospital that Unity Mitford died in May 1948. She had been taken ill at Inch Kenneth, and when her condition worsened she was taken across to Mull, but having missed the ferry to Oban undertook a five hour journey on a motorboat, arriving at the hospital at one in the morning. She died a few hours later.

The hospital closed in 1995, a year short of its centenary. It was replaced by the Lorn & Islands District General Hospital (Reiach and Hall, architects), as were the other small local hospitals: Dalintart, the Mackelvie, the County hospital, and the maternity hospital at Gleneuchar House. A small group of houses now stands on the site, on Polvinster gardens.

*The marker to the right on the map of Oban indicates Polvinster Gardens, the site of the cottage hospital.* © OpenStreetMap contributors

For more information on the hospitals in Oban and the surrounding area see Argyll and Bute

Sources:

H. C. Burdett (ed.), Hospitals and Charities Year Book, 1925: Campbeltown Courier and Argyll Herald, 26 Sept. 1896: Dundee Evening Telegraph, 19 Sept 1896, p.2: Glasgow Evening POst, 4 March 1892, p.4: Edinburgh Evening News, 6 May 1893, p.2: The Scotsman, 19 Sept 1896, p.6: The Hospital, 18 Dec 1886, p.201:16 Aug 1890, p.296: British Architect, 17 July 1896: Building News, 24 June 1898, p.909: Scotsman, 15 July 1933, p.11: Dundee Courier, 15 May 1934, p.4: Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette, 19 June 1936, p.7

Arbroath Infirmary

June 1, 2018November 7, 2021 / Harriet Richardson / Leave a comment

Arbroath Infirmary consists of a pleasing if mismatched group of buildings in a variety of dates and styles. The oldest is the former Rosebrae House, probably dating to around the 1830s-40s. The original infirmary of the 1840s was demolished to make way for the present main stone building, erected in 1913-16 and added to in the 1920s and 30s. Most recent of the additions is the Queen Mother Wing of the 1960s.

Abroath infirmary poscard — *Postcard of Arbroath Infirmary from the 1930s, after the children’s ward had been added (far left of picture). ©* H. Martin

The original infirmary was built on this site in 1844-5 to designs by David Smith and had been preceded by a dispensary, providing medical aid to out-patients, set up in 1836. During an epidemic of typhus in 1842 a small ward was set aside to take fever patients. Fund raising to build a hospital was boosted by a donation of £1,000 from Lord Panmure. (William Maule, 1st Baron Panmure, of Brechin Castle. He served as MP for Forfarshire for many years before he was raised to the peerage.)

*Principal elevation of the 1840s infirmary, reproduced from* The Builder

As well as medical and surgical cases, the infirmary was open to accident cases and also to those suffering from contagious diseases. It was a handsome building, in the fashionable simplified Tudor or Jacobean style much in vogue for domestic villas, and apart from its rigid symmetry, was barely distinguishable from a private house.

*Return elevation of the 1840s infirmary, reproduced from* The Builder

David Murray, mason, Forfar and Messrs Nicol and Wallace, wrights, Arbroath won the building contracts. Local sandstone was the main building material, faced in ashlar on the main elevation and the side returns, but brick was used for internal walls. ‘Arbroath pavement’ was used to floor the service areas, with polished stone for the stairs, and timber for the ward floors – ‘Petersburg battens’ on Memel pine joists. Doors and windows were of American yellow pine, and Easdale slates covered the roof. Natural ventilation was introduced through fresh air flues within the walls, carried behind the skirting boards with vents into the wards. Ornamental openings in the ceilings connected to flues carried through the rear wall to extract foul air.

*Ground-floor plan of the 1840s infirmary, reproduced from* The Builder. A: Consulting-room B: Housekeeper’s room C: Servants’ room D: Medicine room E: Ward for maimed females F: Ward for maimed males G: Bed closet H: Bath room I: Water-closet J: Store place K: Lobby L: Passages M: Closet under stair N: Kitchen O: Porter’s room P: Wash-house Q: Coal house R: Dead house

*First-floor plan. S: Staircase landing T and U: Fever ward for females V: Water closets*

Bristowe and Homes’s account of the Hospitals of the United Kingdom, published in 1866, described the infirmary as it then existed as a single, long building of two floors with the kitchen and offices built out behind. By then the original accommodation had been extended to the west, almost doubling the number of beds that were provided, from thirty-six to sixty.

*This postcard shows the extended infirmary, with the new wing to the left in the same style as the original building. Reproduced by permission of D. Robertson.*

*Extract from the OS Town plan of Arbroath, 1858, with the western addition. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland*

*This old postcard shows the extended infirmary with its encircling wall, railings and entrance gates. Reproduced by permission of D. Robertson.*

Despite the additional wing, by the end of the nineteenth century there was a pressing need to provide more accommodation to meet the needs of the growing population of Arbroath. Unusually, the new hospital was largely constructed during the First World War. Plans by the local architect Hugh Gavin were drawn up by June 1912, but the estimates exceeded the expected upper limit of £12,000 by £2,500. This meant that more money had to be raised, but also prompted some of the infirmary managers to question whether a new building should be built at all, or whether it would be better to find a different site. It was largely for these reasons, and, once they had settled on rebuilding on the existing site, finding a temporary home for the displaced patients and staff, that delayed the start of construction.

In 1913 Greenbank House was purchased to serve as the temporary infirmary, and work looked set to begin until it was decided to seek advice on the plans from Dr Mackintosh, of the Western Infirmary Glasgow. He was the pre-eminent authority on hospital design and administration in Scotland at that time, and whilst this was a laudable decision, it resulted in some early decisions being changed, not always to everyone’s satisfaction. Mackintosh was repeatedly approached for his advice on everything from the best sterilizer to the type of paint to be used. (For the paint he recommended a new process, appropriately called ‘Hygeia’.)

*Arbroath Infirmary, photographed in April 2018. © H. Richardson*

*Postcard showing the same view, perhaps around the 1930s when the children’s ward to the left was newly completed. Reproduced by permission of D. Robertson.*

*Arbroath Infirmary, photographed in April 2018. © H. Richardson. The open sun veranda at the end of the ward to the left has only recently been enclosed at first-floor level.*

Estimates submitted by the various tradesmen for the erection of the new building were considered in March 1913 and were awarded as follows: mason works Messrs Christie and Anderson, builders, Arbroath, £3,775; joiner work Mr Rowland, Chapel Farquhar, joiner, Arbroath £1,828 17s 6d; plumber work Mr Thomas Raitt Grant, plumber Arbroath £1,148 15s 11d; slater work Messrs William Brand & Son, Slaters, Arbroath £191 16s 7d; plaster work Mr Archibald Donald Senior, plasterer, Arbroath £521 2d 4s; tile work Messrs Robert Brown & Son Limited, Ferguslie Works, Paisley £401 8s 2d.

Screen Shot 2015-10-15 at 10.25.44 — *The second edition OS map, revised 1921, shows the rebuilt infirmary. Reproduced with permission of the National Library of Scotland*

The new infirmary was almost finished before the outbreak of the First World War, but it took two more years before it was ready to receive its first patients, as it became increasingly difficult to source materials and workmen. Furniture was acquired late in 1915 from George Rutherford Thomson and Son, cabinetmakers. Bedsteads were separately supplied by Messrs J. Nesbit-Evans & Co. of Birmingham.

The building in the foreground of this old postcard is the toll-house. Behind to the right, up on the hill, is the new infirmary, as completed by the end of the First World War. Reproduced by permission of D. Robertson

Despite hopes that the new infirmary would be ready for patients early in 1916 it was April when it was officially opened, and June before the first patients arrived. With the war still raging, it was clear that beds should be set aside for war wounded. At the outset of the war 30 beds at Greenbank had been offered to the Red Cross Society.

*On the left is Rosebrae House and to its right the nurses’ home. Photographed in April 2018 © H. Richardson.*

After the war the infirmary directors turned their attention to additions to the buildings. In particular there was a need for accommodation for the nurses and for the resident medical officer. Sketch plans were made by Gavin in 1922 for a new nurses’ home costing around £4,000, and the home was completed by March 1924.

This photograph shows roughly the same view of the toll-house as the earlier postcard, but here the new nurses’ home can be seen to the left, with the boiler-house chimney rising behind it. Reproduced by permission of D. Robertson

*This view looking towards the nurses’ home has Rosebrae House on the left and part of the 1913-16 hospital on the right. Photographed in April 2018 © H. Richardson*

The next addition that was urgently required was a children’s ward. Plans were prepared in 1925, but differences arose between the medical staff and the infirmary directors. In April the medical staff submitted their views to the directors. They agreed that a children’s ward was needed, but pointed out that there was an equal need to provide space for maternity cases, cases of venereal diseases, and out-patients.

‘... year by year the Public are demanding an increasing number of hospital beds for the treatment of general medical and surgical diseases. We are in agreement with the Directors that an extension of the hospital is required, but we view with regret and misgiving a proposal to provide one of those departments, in this instance the Children’s Ward, according to a plan which seems to us to be essentially unsound, and, of even greater importance, which blocks one of the natural paths of extension of the hospital.

We beg to suggest that in the preparation of a plan for ultimately providing a complete hospital service the Directors should secure the advice and assistance of a recognized expert in hospital planning and administration, to the end that the various new departments (which need not be provided simultaneously) may be harmoniously correlated and be neither mutually obstructive nor detrimental to the existing hospital.’

The whole question of extending the infirmary was referred back to the building committee and the position of the new children’s ward revised. However, the deepening economic depression of the 1920s, the Second World War, the building restrictions in the years after the war, and then the transfer of the hospital to the National Health Service in 1948, meant that all the new facilities were only provided with the opening of a new wing in 1961.

*The diminutive Rosebrae House on the left, with the south end of the children’s ward block in the foreground. Photographed in April 2018. © H. Richardson.*

For the children’s ward, advice was sought from John Wilson, the chief architect to the Scottish Board of Health, who judged a competition for its design in 1928. Thomas W. Clark, architect of Arbroath, came first, James Lochhead of Hamilton was placed second, and Charles S. Soutar of Dundee third. After criticism from the medical staff, Wilson and Clark amended the plans, and the new wing together with additional accommodation for the nursing staff were built in 1930- 33. Rosebrae House, which adjoined the hospital to the west, had been purchased in 1928 and was used for stores and to accommodate the night nurses. Although the work began under Clark, he resigned part way through the commission, perhaps as a result of conflict with Wilson. James Lochhead, the runner up in the competition, took over the commission.

*Extract from the OS 1:2,500 map surveyed in 1964. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland*

As to the 1961 wing, this comprised consultative out-patients department, physiotherapy department and maternity unit. The total cost was £90,000 of which £53,000 came from the Board of Management’s Endowment Funds.

*The Queen Mother Wing, built 1958-61 to provide for out-patients, maternity and physiotherapy departments. Photographed in April 2018. © H. Richardson.*

The architect to the Eastern Regional Hospitals Board, James Deuchars, and the regional engineer, R. G. McPherson, drew up the first set of plans for the wing back in 1952, although the building was only put out to tender in 1958. The building contractor was R. Pert & Sons Ltd of Montrose, the clerk of works, Mr Groves, and the engineer in charge, Mr Moodie. The Angus Hospitals Board of Management blamed delays in construction on a lack of collaboration between Duechars and McPherson, an accusation hotly denied by the Eastern Regional Hospitals Board.

*Detail of the Queen Mother Wing. Photographed in April 2018. © H. Richardson.*

Later work on site, including a new X-ray department, was designed by Baxter, Clark and Paul in 1968.

Sources: Coventry Herald, 14 April 1843, p.3: The Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal 1847: The Builder, 28 Sept 1844, pp 494-5; 7 March 1896, p.217; 22 March 1957, 28 Feb p.572, 10 Oct 1958, p.423, 633: Glasgow Herald, 21 Jan. 1913; 15 Feb. 1913; 13 March 1913: Dundee University Archives, Minutes of Directors, THB 20/1/1/1-3, Minutes of Board of Management Angus Hospitals, THB 20/1/4; ERHB Magazine, No.9, vol.1 Winter Dec 1964; ERHB Mins THB 18/1/5: The Scotsman, 4 Feb 1933, p.11: Dictionary of Scottish Architects

Dundee Women’s Hospital

March 18, 2018May 1, 2023 / Harriet Richardson / Leave a comment

*South Front of the former hospital, photographed in 2018 © H. Richardson*

On the slopes of Balgay Hill to the west of Dundee sits the former Dundee Women’s Hospital. Since it closed in the 1970s it has been converted into private flats. One was for sale when I visited the site in February this year. On a sunny day it is a pleasing building, in a quiet, understated Scottish Arts & Crafts style, with cream-painted harling and twin gables enclosing a balcony and verandah. It was designed by a local architect, James Findlay, and was opened on 24 February 1915.

*Detail view of the central balcony and verandah, photographed in 2018 © H. Richardson*

The hospital began as a dispensary for women, established in Dundee in about 1891. In October 1895 a committee was formed to consider establishing a small cottage hospital. In the following year the hospital was opened at 19 Seafield Road, near the Tayfield jute works. It claimed to be the first private hospital in Scotland for the treatment of women by women medical practitioners. Three women were the chief promoters of the scheme: the social reformer Mary Lily Walker, Dr Alice Moorhead and Dr Emily Thomson. The aim was not only to provide hospital treatment for women who wished to be treated by women, but also a private home for women with limited means.

By 1911 it had been decided to build a new hospital. Fund-raising events were held, at first with the idea of enlarging the existing building, but Beatrice Sharp offered £4,000 to build a new hospital. A memorial recording her gift can still be seen set into the boundary wall. Beatrice Sharp was the wife of a wealthy industrialist and together they had commissioned Sir Robert Lorimer to rebuild Wemysshall in Fife, creating Hill of Tarvit House in 1907.

*Memorial plaque on boundary wall, photographed in 2018 © H. Richardson*

Plans for the new hospital were approved by the Town Council in 1912 and two years later the building was completed. However, on the eve of the hospital’s opening a fire broke out causing major damage and destroying all the woodwork. It took another year or so to restore and rebuild the hospital.

The fire was not accidental. It was reputedly an arson attack by suffragettes – a rather surprising target perhaps. The artist and suffragette, Ethel Moorhead was the sister of Alice Moorhead, one of the founders of the hospital. Ethel Moorhead was connected with a number of arson attacks and other militant acts – from smashing windows in London to throwing an egg at Winston Churchill. But she was also the first suffragette in Scotland to be force fed while in prison in Edinburgh in February 1914. Although she was seriously ill after this, she recovered and continued campaigning. It was suggested that she was with her friend and collaborator Fanny Parker in a failed attempt to blow up Burns Cottage in Alloway in July 1914.

*Former Dundee Women’s Hospital, photographed in 2018 © H. Richardson*

Whether or not she was behind the attack on the Dundee Women’s Hospital does not seem to be recorded. Suffragette literature was found in the neighbourhood and a message was left at the scene that read: ‘no peace till we get the vote. Blame the King and the Government’, the same message left at similar incidents all over the country. [1] The fire was spotted by a nurse at the nearby Victoria Hospital who raised the alarm. It was reported that late the previous night and early on the morning of the fire, a grey, or slate-coloured motor car was seen in the district containing several women. The night watchman on duty at the hospital also reported seeing three women having a look at the place early one morning after the fire. He thought that they might be ‘of a mind to return to complete their work’ . It was early dawn and the light uncertain. On seeing the watchman the women quickly disappeared. They appeared to be ‘young and well dressed’. [2] The timing was unfortunate for the hospital- the attack was made in early June, not long before the outbreak of the First World War, after which the suffragettes suspended their campaign.

*Extract from the 2nd-edition OS map, revised in 1921. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland*

While the rebuilding work was carried out, the hospital moved into temporary accommodation at 19 Windsor Street. At the end of February 1915 the new hospital was officially opened. The two storey building set on high ground with commanding views south over the Tay provided twenty beds. On the ground floor at the east end was a sun room: ‘an ideal little nook … where the convalescents can have a sun-bath at their leisure’. [3] The covered verandah and balcony above were deep enough to allow beds to be pushed out onto them. Inside cream distempering set off brown woodwork, while palms and flowering bulbs adorned the corridors.

*Extract from the 25-inch OS map surveyed in 1951-2. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland. This shows extensions to the original building to the north west*

James Findlay, the architect of the hospital, was born in Alyth, Perthshire, the son of a successful grocer and baker. He was married to Margaret Ann Donaldson, who died in October 1916. Findlay had been articled to John Murray Robertson in Dundee and took over the practice when Robertson died in 1901. Findlay’s chief assistant was David Smith who had worked in the London County Council’s Architect’s Department in 1902-3. While in London, Smith studied at the influential Regent Street Polytechnic and later joined the office of Leonard Stokes before returning to Dundee. He was responsible for much of the design work in Findlay’s practice. Findlay himself was one of the first people in Dundee to own a motor car. He appears in the local press on several occasions for minor traffic offences – he was fined a guinea for exceeding a 10-mile-per-hour speed limit in 1912.

The contractors, like the architects, were almost all local: building work was carried out by James R Anderson, bricklayer, builder and contractor, E Esplanade, (whose home address in a 1912 directory was given as 4 Morgan Street); the joiners were Alexander Bruce & Son, Victoria Joinery Works, 129 Clepington Road; the plumbers John Orr & Son, registered plumbers and sanitary engineers, 272 Hawkhill; workshop, 31A Ryehill Lane (home 290 Balckness road): slater and harl work, William Brand & Son, slaters and cement workers, St Vincent Street, Broughty Ferry: glazier work, Lindsay & Scott, glass merchants, glaziers, and zinc and lead window makers, 24 to 28 Bank Street, branch 86 Victoria road: painter work, Allan Boath, painter and decorator, 141 and 143 Nethrgate, home – 171 Perth Road: grates, G. H. Nicoll & Co., furnishing and general ironmongers, 18 and 20 Bank Street: heating, Henry Walker & Son, Newcastle: Verandah ironwork, Thomas Russell, smith and engineer, St Andrew’s Iron works, 50 and 52 St Andrew’s street, home – 8 Nelson Terrace: gates and railings, George Mann, blacksmith, 40 Seafield Road: walls, William Bennet, builder and contractor, 41 Reform street, yard , 11 Parker street, home – 93 Arbroath road: roads, David Horsburgh, carting contractor, 65 Trades lane home – Eden villa, 83 Clepington Rd: grounds, James Laurie & Son, landscape gardeners & valuators, Blackness Nursery.

*This advertisement for James Laurie & Son, who laid out the grounds of the hospital, appeared in the Dundee Directory for 1911-12, reproduced from the National Library of Scotland.*

The hospital was transferred to the National Health Service in 1948 and latterly became an annexe of the Royal Infirmary. It closed in 1975 but was retained by Tayside Health Board until the 1980s when it was sold with outline planning permission for redevelopment. Full permission to convert the hospital into flats was granted to the new owners, Hilltown Property Company, in 1988.

Notes: 1. The Suffragette, 5 June 1914: 2. Dundee People’s Journal, 6 June 1914 p.9: 3. Dundee Courier, 25 Feb 1915, p.4.

Sources: Dundee University Archives, plans: Dundee Courier, 9 Dec 1911, p.6; 24 Feb 1915, p.6, 4 Oct 1916, p.6: Wikipedia: Dundee online planning portal: Aberdeen Press & Journal, 23 May 1914, p.7; Dundee Evening Telegraph, 9 Nov 1904, p.5; 21 Oct 1907, p.3; 13 Sept 1912, 15 Oct 1913, p.2; Dundee People’s Journal, 30 May 1914, p.9; 7 Oct 1916, p.11; Perthshire Advertiser, 10 March 1943, p.8

Adamson Hospital, Cupar, Fife

January 9, 2018February 2, 2025 / Harriet Richardson / 1 Comment

*The Adamson Hospital,* photographed in December 2017 © H. Richardson

The Adamson Hospital in Fife’s County Town of Cupar is a modest, quietly attractive Edwardian building with a bold modern wing added in 2012. It first opened in 1904, but this was not the beginning of its history. Like so many historic hospitals it had a shaky start, but unusually it began in a fine purpose built hospital erected in the 1870s. Its only fault was location – it was built on the outskirts of the picturesque village of Ceres, about 3 miles to the south of Cupar. Its isolated position and inadequate support from local doctors proved its downfall, it operated for just six years as a hospital and then lay empty until it was acquired by the Leith Fortnightly Holiday Scheme.

*Postcard of the first Adamson Cottage Hospital, reproduced courtesy of Ian Lindsay © Ian Lindsay, Postcard13*

*The original hospital, named the Adamson Institute (sometimes also called the Adamson Institution), photographed in December 2017* © H. Richardson

Alexander Adamson, after whom the hospital was named, was a manufacturer in Ceres, ‘in the halcyon days of handloom weaving’ (according to the St Andrews Citizen). [1] He died in 1866 a wealthy man, bequeathing the residue of his estate for the purpose of founding either a school or a hospital in or near Cupar. His seven trustees were personal friends and were mostly from Ceres, and when they decided upon building a hospital, they chose Ceres as its location. Thus the Adamson Institute or Institution as it was variously known was built in 1872-3 to designs by the Cupar architect David Milne. A portrait of the founder, painted by Charles Lees, was to be hung on its walls.

*Detail of the centre gable and flanking dormer heads – the latter carved with the date 1872, photographed in December 2017* © H. Richardson

Surviving today, though now converted into private flats, the former Adamson Institution is a handsome building, not obviously a hospital in its outward appearance. This was common enough for cottage hospitals, particularly the earlier ones, which deliberately aimed to present a more domestic appearance than the often dour poor law infirmaries designed with Nightingale-style ward blocks. Cottage hospitals treated a broader spectrum of society, were generally operated by the local general practitioners and sometimes charged a small fee to in-patients. The Ceres building fits neatly into this pattern. Its architect was local, as were the builders and craftsmen who worked on it: the builder was from Ceres, Robert Nicholson, as was the joiner, William Younger; the plumber was Mrs Steele from Cupar; William Bryson of Cupar was the plasterer; Francis Batchelor, the slater, was also from Cupar; the lather, John Burns was from St Andrews as was the bell hanger, James Foulis. [2]

The map is not very clearly labelled. The ‘Adamson’s Institute’ is the large building to the right of the lettering, marked with a small circle. Detail from the 2nd Edition 25-inch OS map, revised in 1893. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland.

Just fifteen patients could be accommodated in eight bedrooms, three on the ground floor and five on the first floor, and there was a sitting room on each floor for the use of ambulant patients. The board room was to double as an operating room and there was the usual accommodation for staff and services. Although the building was completed in 1873 and Dr Blair of Strathkinness appointed as its medical officer, it is unclear whether it received any patients in the early years. Dr Blair left the district in 1876, and in 1877 the Trustees were advertising for a nurse, who would also act as a Housekeeper and Cook, for the hospital which was ‘about to be opened’. [3]

*This 1912 map marks the Leith Holiday Home (it is the large building some distance to the right of the label). Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland.*

In 1883 the trustees were forced to close the hospital. Various efforts were made by the local authorities to acquire the building as an infectious diseases hospital, but these were rejected by the Adamson Trustees. In 1895 it was leased to the committee of the Leith Fortnightly Holiday Scheme, providing under-privileged town children with a ‘fresh-air-fortnight’. The first fifty children were sent here in July 1896. The building was finally purchased by the Scheme in 1901. Later it became known as Alwyn House, an employment rehabilitation centre. For more on the later history of the building see the comments below.

*Postcard of the Adamson Cottage Hospital*

Meanwhile the need for a cottage hospital in Cupar was becoming increasingly pressing, in particular for cases of severe injury due to accidents. This became critical in 1899 when the place to which accidents or special cases of illness were taken was taken over by the burgh and made into an infectious diseases hospital, closing its doors to all other cases. Other patients had to suffer the long journey to Edinburgh for admission to the Royal Infirmary. Members of Cupar’s Sick Poor Nursing Association were instrumental in finally getting a cottage hospital in the town. In April 1899 they opened a small hospital-come-nursing home at Moat Hill. Pressure was also put on the Adamson Trustees to fulfil their original requirements. The decision to sell the Ceres building to the Leith Holiday Home Committee and buy or rent a building to be called the Adamson Hospital ‘in a more suitable place’ was narrowly voted through at a meeting of the Trustees in February 1901. [4]

*The original part of the Adamson Cottage Hospital, photographed in December 2017* © H. Richardson

After obtaining plans from three local men: Henry Bruce, David Storrar and Henry Allan Newman, Newman was appointed and work progressed quickly. The contractors for the work were mostly from Cupar or Cupar Muir: J. Stark, mason; Thomas Donaldson, joiner; A. Stewart, plumber; Messsrs M’Intosh & Son, plasterers and slaters; John Randall, painter; C. Edmond, glazer; R. Dott Thomson supplied the grates and A. Douglas of Dundee electric bells. The furnishing was carried out by W & J. Muckersie, the window blinds by Hood & Robertson, both of Cupar. [5]

*Extract from the 2nd edition OS map, revised in 1912, reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland*

The hospital opened in December 1904. There was no formal opening ceremony, but the local press published a sketch of the new hospital after a drawing by the architect, and carried a full description of the building. On the ground floor, to the left of the main entrance, was the female ward and a bedroom and sitting room for the matron, while in the equivalent position to the right was the male ward, the Yeomanry Ward, and an operating room. Kitchens etc were to the rear, nurses’ and staff accommodation in the attic. The Yeomanry Ward was a memorial to members of the 20th Company of the Imperial Yeomanry who served in the Boer War and was paid for by funds raised by Sir John Gilmour. [5]

*The new wing of the Adamson Cottage Hospital. Photographed in December 2017* © H. Richardson

Since its opening in 1904 several extensions and additions were made on the site. Most recently in 2011-12 a new health centre was added to the west of the original building and the original hospital reconfigured by JMArchitects for Glenrothes and North East Fife Community Health Partnership (GNEF CHP) with Ogilvie Construction Ltd. This work entailed clearing away some of the later extensions to the hospital.

St Andrews Citizen, 2 March 1901, p.6
Fife Herald, 2 Oct 1873, p.2
Fife Herald, 27 Sept 1877, p.1
Dundee Courier, 27 Feb 1901, p.7
St Andrews Citizen, 12 Nov 1904, p.6

Sources: Fife Health Board: Minute Books: The Courier, 26 Nov 2012: a booklet has been produced by Cupar Heritage on the history of the hospital (which I haven’t yet seen).

St Margaret’s Hospital, Auchterarder

October 13, 2017May 1, 2023 / Harriet Richardson / Leave a comment

*Main front of St Margaret’s Hospital, photographed in 2017 © David Wotherspoon, all rights reserved.*

The cottage hospital in Auchterarder is a really good example of Scottish architectural style being applied to a public building in the inter-war years. The 1920s and 30s were not just about International Modernism or Art Deco; Gothic Revival and the Arts & Crafts styles continued to flourish and develop. Here, the Glasgow-based architects Stewart & Paterson were commissioned by Andrew Thomson Reid (1863-1940) of Auchterarder House to design a cottage hospital as a memorial to his parents. The architects had worked for Reid on additions to Auchterarder House before the First World War.

*Extract from the 1:25,000 OS Map, surveyed in 1938. Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland.*

Reid had been planning to build a hospital since before the First World War, but war-time conditions and their aftermath caused the project to stall.

*Detail of one of the dormer heads. The initials J R commemorate James Reid, Andrew Reid’s father and the founder of the family’s wealth. Photograph © David Wotherspoon, all rights reserved.*

*The initials M A R on this dormer head are of Andrew Reid’s mother, Margaret Ann Reid, née Scott. Photograph © David Wotherspoon, all rights reserved.*

Building work commenced in 1924. W. G. Gordon, builder, was awarded the contract for the mason work, and George Miler & Sons carried out the slater work. The site to the west of the town just north of Durward’s Nursery, had been granted to Reid by Auchterarder Town Council. The hospital was officially opened by the Duchess of Atholl in August 1926. Amongst the dignitaries who attended the ceremony were Andrew Thomson Reid, his brother Edward Thomas Scott Reid, Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway, Viscount Haldane and the American author and social commentator, Mary Follett, who was a guest of Lord Haldane.

*South front of St Margaret’s Hospital. Photograph © David Wotherspoon, all rights reserved.*

The architects had very little past experience in hospital design and were advised in the planning of St Margaret’s by Dr D. J. Macintosh of the Western Infirmary Glasgow. The hospital had a simple symmetrical plan to provide for male patients on one side and women on the other in two public and two private wards catering for twelve patients in all. There were also the usual administrative offices, staff accommodation, kitchen and laundry as well as an operating theatre, dispensary and a boardroom.

*View to the back of St Margaret’s Hospital showing later additions. Photograph © David Wotherspoon, all rights reserved.*

In 1948 the hospital became part of the National Health Service, administered by the Eastern Regional Board. Once building restrictions had been lifted, plans were made to add an out‑patient department with X-ray facilities, this was supposed to be built in 1954.

*St Margaret’s Health Centre. Photograph © David Wotherspoon, all rights reserved.*

A health centre was added in the early 1990s to designs by McLaren Murdoch & Hamilton, architects, but the present health centre seems to have been built in 2001, and extended or refurbished in 2003.

*The gates and stone gate piers at the foot of the drive leading to St Margaret’s Hospital. Photograph © David Wotherspoon, all rights reserved.*

Sources

Minutes and letter books for the hospital from 1926-1948 are held by Perth and Kinross Archives

Journal of the R.I.B.A. Vol.XXVI, p.343: Dundee Courier, 12 April 1924, p.3; 22 July 1924, p.7; 16 Aug 1926, pp 4 and 9; 16 Oct 1952, p.4: Sunday Post, 15 Aug 1926, p.5: Perth County Council online planning: Perth and Kinross Council, Culture & Community Services, Profile of Auchterarder

Historic Hospitals

An Architectural Gazetteer

Scottish Hospitals

Brechin Infirmary and St Drostan’s House

Post-War Changes

Like this:

The Western Isles Hospital, Stornoway, and its forebears

Like this:

Netherlea Hospital, Newport-on-Tay

Like this:

The first Glasgow Royal Infirmary

Like this:

Raigmore Hospital, Inverness

Like this:

West Highland Cottage Hospital in Oban

Progress on the revised scheme was less than rapid. The plans by Robert Mortimer were laid aside and a competition held for new designs. It took a few years to raise additional funds to provide an endowment to cover the hospital’s running costs, but finally the new hospital was completed in 1896.

Like this:

Arbroath Infirmary

Like this:

Dundee Women’s Hospital

Like this:

Adamson Hospital, Cupar, Fife

Like this:

St Margaret’s Hospital, Auchterarder

Like this:

Post-War Changes

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Progress on the revised scheme was less than rapid. The plans by Robert Mortimer were laid aside and a competition held for new designs. It took a few years to raise additional funds to provide an endowment to cover the hospital’s running costs, but finally the new hospital was completed in 1896.

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: