If you are researching your family history, or interested in finding out more about the hospitals in Lanarkshire you can get in touch with North Lanarkshire Archives at  HeritageCentre@culturenl.co.uk with any questions. North Lanarkshire Archives, situated in Motherwell, look after the local NHS records. They have the surviving records of Alexander Hospital (Coatbridge), Motherwell Maternity Hospital, Law Hospital (Carluke), Hartwood Hospital (Shotts), Bellshill Maternity Hospital, Calderbank House Hospital (Baillieston), Roadmeetings Hospital (Carluke), William Smellie Hospital (Maternity Ward) (Lanark), Strathclyde/County Hospital (Motherwell) as well as administrative records.

AIRBLES HOSPITAL, MOTHERWELL (demolished)   Built as Dalziel poorhouse to replace the earlier combination poorhouse in Park Street (see Motherwell Poorhouse below) following the break ufp of the combination of parishes that had joined together to build the original poorhouse in the 1860s. Since then the population had expanded dramatically and the old building was no longer adequate. Plans for the new poorhosue were drawn up in 1903 by Alexander Cullen, and the buildings were erected in 1904-5. It had a fine situation at Airbles Farm overlooking the river Clyde (and the cemetery). In the 1920s it changed its name to Airbles House.

The main building was the main poorhouse, in addition to which was, to the east, the U-shaped infirmary block and behind workshops and a block for children.

Under the National Health Service the infirmary became Airbles Hospital for the chronic sick, and the remainder of the buildings were designated as an old people’s home, Avon Lodge. Still functioning in the 1970s, the site has since been developed for housing, with McIntosh Way laid out through the middle. [Sources: Scottish Record Office, plans, RHP 30881/1‑18. See also workhouses.org]

AIRBLES ROAD CENTRE (see under Motherwell Maternity Hospital, below)

AIRDRIE COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTRE, Graham Street Designed as part of a mixed-used development in 2009 by McLean Architects.

AIRDRIE HOUSE MATERNITY HOSPITAL (demolished) Airdrie House was a substantial stone-built villa in the tudor style. The estate were purchased by John Wilson, M.P. for the Falkirk burghs in 1897. He bequeathed the house to the people of Airdrie, and following his death in 1918 it was converted into a maternity hospital serving Airdrie and Coatbridge.

It was opened by Lady Mackenzie on 10 August 1919. It provided 24 beds but this soon proved to be inadequate.

In 1963 the house was demolished and Monklands General built on the site (see below). [Sources: James Knox, Airdrie, a Historical Sketch, Airdrie, 1921: see also Monklands Memories]

ALEXANDER HOSPITAL, COATBRIDGE (demolished)   In about 1897 Provost Alexander of Coatbridge left £30,000 for the erection of a hospital to be named after him. The plans were drawn up by the local architect A. McGregor Mitchell and the burgh engineer. The result was a standard-plan cottage hospital built of red sandstone in the Scottish Baronial style. Architecturally it is closely related to contemporary villa style, with the crow-stepped gables giving it a serrated roof silhouette. There were to be thirteen beds ‘for patients meeting with accidents in the districts of Old and New Monklands and Shotts’. The hospital opened on 1 April 1899.

In 1905 X-ray apparatus was installed and in 1925 a new ward, nurses’ apartments and an operating theatre were added. An out-patients’ department was opened in 1954 and a Maternity Unit in 1962 (presumably coinciding with the closure on Airdrie House Maternity Hospital). The wards were closed in 1978. The building continued in use as the Alexander Resource Centre run by Lanarkshire Council until 2005. In 2008 it was put up sale, but was badly damaged by fire the following year and subsequently demolished. [Sources:The Builder, 20 Feb. 1897, p.178: see also Monklands Memories]

BECKFORD LODGE, HAMILTON  Originally Hamilton Combination Fever Hospital which was built in 1879 to designs by Peat & Duncan. Cases of infectious diseases were transferred to Udston Hospital from 1918 and Beckford Lodge was converted into a maternity home and child welfare clinic.

It re-opened as Beckford Lodge Maternity Home in 1924 with eight beds in two wards, one bed in a side room and another single bed in the lodge for isolation cases. In 1930 a new operating room and ward extensions were carried out.

The site was redeveloped with a new NHS facility for patients with mental health needs which opened in 2012. [Sources: NHS Lanarkshire ]

BELLEFIELD HOSPITAL, LANARK (demolished)   From 1895 Bellefield House had been used as a private sanatorium. It was formerly owned by James Lawrie, a local Justice of the Peace and director of the Lockhart Hospital in Lanark. The house was a typical gabled villa with a crenellated tower of modest architectural pretensions. In 1903 it was acquired for the Glasgow and West of Scotland branch of the National Association of the Prevention of Consumption. Glasgow Corporation contributed to the cost of building hospital pavilions in the grounds. The sanatorium was officially re-opened on June 6 1904, with accommodation for 30 male patients, staff being accommodated in the house. The first ward pavilion was of wood and iron construction of the Speirs & Co. type.

The low, deep-eaved ward blocks, with south facing verandas, were built on the standard half-butterfly plan for tuberculosis pavilions. They formed a distinctive and well-composed group. Originally there were two large pavilions and six chalets. The chalets had gone by the 1980s, and had probably been removed to make way for the extension of the hospital carried out in 1922.

In 1928 the management of the hospital was taken over by Glasgow Corporation. In 1961 it ceased to operate as a sanatorium and was converted into a geriatric hospital, functioning as such until 1966. In the following year it became a hospital-home for the mentally handicapped.  Bellefield Hospital was still going strong in the 1980s, but closed in 1993. More recently all the buildings on the site have been demolished to make way for a housing development. [Sources: Lanark Library, Local History Collection, Scrap-book of news-cuttings: Lanark Town Council Minutes, 24 Jan. 1903: see also, clydesdalesheritage.org]

BELLSHILL MATERNITY HOSPITAL, North Road, Bellshill (demolished)   The new hospital designed by Gillespie, Kidd and Coia was opened by Queen Elizabeth on 2 July 1962. It was one of the earliest large-scale, post-War hospitals in Scotland and, though severely functional in appearance, it was carefully proportioned. It contained 132 beds and 56 paediatric cots, as well as all the ancillary accommodation such as theatres and delivery rooms.

This building replaced the older hospital which had initially been built as a poor law hospital in the 1870s by Bothwell Parochial Board. From 1892 the old hospital was used for infectious diseases and was known as Bothwell Hospital (although on the OS maps it is named as Bellshill Hospital). During the First World War discharged disabled soldiers were accommodated there, but by 1917, the Lanarkshire Maternity Hospital had been established on the site. Between the Wars further additions were made but the need for a new hospital was recognized by the early years of the National Health Service’s administration.

The hospital closed in 2001 and was demolished in 2003, the site has been redeveloped with housing (Caldwell Grove etc, off North Road). [Sources: Lanarkshire Medical Officer of Health, 13th Annual Report, 1903: see also flickriver.com and Glasgow School of Art Library and Archives flickr album for a series of photographs and plans etc]

BIRKWOOD HOSPITAL, LESMAHAGOW   The older buildings on the estate of Birkwood House form an impressive group. Apart from the large mansion house there are gate lodges, two fine bridges and a walled garden. The house belongs to a group of Scottish country houses built in the nineteenth century which owe much to the designs and philosophy of country-house design developed by William Burn. The fine masonry details and handsome window designs are essential to the character of this house; inside some good nineteenth century details survive.

At the core of the mansion house there is a Georgian house, part of which can be distinguished to the rear of the present house. Major additions were carried out in 1858 by John Baird 1st and in 1890 a new wing was added by James Thomson of Glasgow which gives the house its present character. The extensions more than doubled the original accommodation and produced a Tudor Gothic mansion of generous proportions from the original modest classical house.

The mansion house and estate of Birkwood were formerly owned by Mr W. A. S. MacKirdy, and were bought in 1923 for £10,000 by Lanarkshire County Council to be converted into an institution for juvenile mentally handicapped patients. At the auction of the MacKirdy household effects many items were purchased by the Council and mostly remain in the house today {1991}.

The house was converted into the institution by Alexander Cullen (junior) and it opened on 3 July 1923. Various blocks were built in the grounds including a school in 1926, and a new ward block in 1929 designed by James N. Gilmore. Further blocks were added in 1943 and 1958, and a new recreation hall in 1970. By then Birkwood Hospital had been transferred to the National Health Service.

It closed in 2005 and by 2011 the empty house was in very poor condition and placed on the Buildings at Risk register for Scotland. It was acquired in 2014 for conversion into a hotel and apartments and buildings in the grounds cleared away, but in July 2015 part of the house collapsed.  [Sources: RCAHMS, National Monuments Record of Scotland: Annals of Lesmahagow: Western Daily Press,  8 August 2015 online]

CARNBOOTH CHILDREN’S HOME, CARMUNNOCK  (see under Glasgow) 

CARSTAIRS, STATE HOSPITAL A secure psychiatric hospital, originally built in 1936-9, but its opening was deferred until 1948. Largely rebuilt in 2008-12 to designs by macmon. [Sources: Pevsner Architectural Guide, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, 2016.]

CLELAND HOSPITAL, BELLSIDE ROAD Cleland Hospital was originally built as Omoa Poorhouse in 1903. Its late appearance was partly due to the large increase in the poor after the Boer War. Designed by Alexander Cullen of Hamilton, the site was chosen because it was on the boundary of the combining parishes of Shotts, Cambusnethan and Bothwell. The name Omoa was derived from the West Indies Estates owned by Colonel Dalrymple, the founder of the Cleland Iron Works. Much of the building on the site is domestic in character with the larger blocks designed in a Free style, popular in the early twentieth century. The buildings consisted of a receiving block near the entrance gate, an administration block in the centre of the group, dormitory and day-room blocks. A hospital block, comprising a tall nurses’ home and flanking pavilions connected by covered ways was also built on the site together with the usual laundry and disinfector. Cottages for married couples were also provided which was very rare in poorhouses although it was recognized by reformers as desirable by this date.

The walls of the buildings were stone‑faced, with brick lining and cavities. The passages were paved with granolithic. Omoa poorhouse closed in 1939 and the buildings were taken over by the Department of Health as a general hospital. During the Second World War it was used for military and civilian casualties. It also took Polish Military personnel, evacuee children, casualties of the Greenock and Clydebank air raids and a mixture of convalescent patients from Glasgow’s Royal and Western Infirmaries and Maternity and gynaecological patients from Bellshill. After the inception of the National Health Service it became a geriatric hospital.

All the old buildings were still extant in 2005. A new hospital was built on the eastern edge of the site, and the original buildings have now been demolished. (see also workhouses.org)

COATBRIDGE HEALTH CENTRE, Centre Park Drive red brick with low spreading eaves, arranged around five internal courtyards.

COATHILL HOSPITAL, HOSPITAL STREET, COATBRIDGE   The former Old Monkland Poorhouse of 1861, designed by Robert Baird, forms the oldest part of the present hospital complex. Its stark simplicity and regularity of detail are an instant clue to its original function. The loss of its chimney stacks makes it even more austere. It has since been converted into staff accommodation.

Poor Law hospital accommodation was built to the rear and later a new burgh infectious diseases hospital was constructed on the adjacent site which is now the nucleus of the present hospital.

The fever hospital was extended eastwards with three more ward blocks and ancillary buildings c.1900 to designs by Alexander McGregor Mitchell and in 1910 a house for the medical superintendent and a lodge were added, designed by Mitchell’s son, also Alexander, though the earlier buildings may well also have been the work of the son, as Mitchell senior made over the running of the office to his son in 1900.

Recently the hospital has been modernised, with new roofs, but the majority of the original buildings survives, parts of the original poorhouse complex have been demolished, and at least one of the fever ward blocks, replaced by a new ward unit, Glencairn, built in 2007 to designs by SMC Davis Duncan Architects [Sources: Greater Glasgow Health Board Archives, plans of poorhouse block from Common Services Agency: Pevsner Architectural Guide, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, 2016, for 2007 building. See also Workhouses.org]

CUMBERNAULD, CENTRAL HEALTH CENTRE, North Carbrain Road Built in 1966-71 to designs by the Minsitry of Public Buildings and Works with CDC Architects. Originally flat-roofed with exposed brick, it was re-clad in 1996-8. [Sources: Pevsner Architectural Guide, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, 2016]

DALSERF HOSPITAL, LARKHALL  (demolished)  Dalserf Hospital was originally provided by the local authority as a smallpox hospital in the 1890s. In 1903 the Lanarkshire Medical Officer for Health’s report noted that the hospital remained unoccupied with a caretaker in a cottage on the hospital grounds.

On the OS map surveyed in 1941 it is shown as an Orthopaedic Hospital, but after the war, in the 1948 Scottish Hospitals Survey, it was described as a temporary wooden building with fifteen beds. It was demolished in the 1960s.

DOUGLAS COTTAGE HOSPITAL, see Lady Home Hospital below

FAIRHAVEN MATERNITY HOME, 151 Hyndford Road A seven‑bed maternity home, officially opened by Mrs Scott Stantilaine in December 1928. The building still stands, latterly a well being centre (The Vortex), a substantial detached two-storey villa, probably built around 1900. Its front elevation is of red sandstone and blond sandstone dressings, with a full-height canted bay widow to the left.

The beds were arranged in four ‘wards’ – just bedrooms really. One with three beds, one with two and two single rooms. It was the first such home in the district, and was established by a husband a wife team: Mr and Mrs Munro. The following year an item in the Carluke and Lanark Gazette announced that the home was now ready to receive patients, having been registered and passed by the rules and regulations of the Central Midwives Board. Fees and particulars could be had from Mrs Janetta R. Munro, certified midwife. ‘Besides being fully equipped and adapted for maternity cases the home is also highly recommended for anyone desirous of rest and attention, convalescence etc’. During the Second World War, the home served as an overflow for patients from the County Hospital at Bellshill. With the advent of the National Health Service such private nursing homes became largely redundant. The home closed in 1949, although Mrs Munro kept Fairhaven as a guest house.  [Sources: Lanark Library, Local History Collection, Scrap-book of news-cuttings: Carluke & Lanark Gazette, 1 March 1929, p.2, 25 March 1949, p.3: clydesdale heritage]

GLENLEE HOUSE, BURNBANK   Situated adjacent to Udston Hospital Glenlee House was used for pulmonary TB cases from 1920.

HAIRMYRES HOSPITAL, EAST KILBRIDE The hospital seems to have originated with a poorhouse consisting of a two‑storey stone house. Intended by Lanark County Council for indigent women, it was, however, used for men, possibly as an inebriate reformatory. It was built to designs by Gavin Paterson in 1904.

At the outset of the First World War the local authority built an infectious diseases hospital on the site, part of the construction of which was carried out by German Prisoners of War. Jamieson & Arnott drew up the plans.

From modest beginnings the hospital has expanded out of all recognition and most of the older blocks have now been demolished. At first there was a farm, forest nursery and TB Sanatoria for ten male patients. Soon, a further pavilion was added and an administration block. In 1938 a further two‑storey treatment block and nurses home, designed by John Stewart, were added. During the Second World War eighteen Emergency Medical Scheme huts were constructed on the site.

Before the TB vaccine was developed it had been intended that Hairmyres would become a sanatorium colony with training for the patients in skills from basket‑making to motor engineering, accordingly workshops were provided for all such activities. However, during the Second World War, with the additional hutted wards, the hospital developed as an orthopaedic unit. George Orwell was a TB patient here in 1946-7, the first to be treated with steptomycin.

Major extensions were carried out by Lanarkshire Health Board in the 1970s. Much of the original hospital has been replaced by a new PFI hospital which opened in 2001, built by the Keir Group, with Craig & Struthers architects. Housing has been built over much of the southern parts of the site. [Sources: Architect & Building News, 11 July 1930, p.58: Pevsner Architectural Guide, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, 2016.]

HAMILITON INFANTRY BARRACKS HOSPITAL

HAMILTON POORHOUSE (demolished)  There was a small poorhouse in Hamilton by the late 1850s on Muir Wynd. This was replaced by the Hamilton Combination Poorhouse, built on a site adjacent to the barracks on Bothwell Road to designs by J. G. Peat & Co. in about 1865. It followed the standard H‑plan. [Sources: Scottish Record Office, plans, RHP 30865/1‑49. See also workhouses.org]

HARTWOOD HOSPITAL, SHOTTS (largely demolished) This vast complex, with its sister institution of Hartwood Hill, must have formed one of the largest hospital sites in Scotland. The main building, situated on rising ground with extensive views across the countryside, presented a muscular facade with its dominant twin towers and Baronial detail. These had a robustness quite different from the twin towers of Gartloch or Woodilee. The hospital was built as the District Asylum for Lanark, designed by J. L. Murray of Biggar, work began in 1890 and initially provided accommodation for 500 patients. In 1898 two large separate blocks were completed to the rear of the main building and linked to it by covered corridors which remain in much their original condition.

In 1906 the sanatorium was built with 26 beds for the isolation of TB patients. In 1916 a new admission hospital was completed and the imposing nurses’ home to the south was opened in 1931. The nurses’ home was particularly curious for its anachronistic style. Designed in 1926 by James Lochhead of Hamilton, it shared the spirit of the principal asylum block and was on a similar giant scale. It was of four stories on a U‑plan with Scottish baronial details and J. J. Burnet-style attic windows. The chief importance of this site lay in its layout and the architectural qualities of the buildings in relation to one another. It was one of the few Scottish asylums to approach an échelon plan, common in England at this time.

In about 1935 the Hartwood Hill site was developed to the north-east in response to the need for accommodation for adult mentally handicapped and the passing of the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. The buildings were designed by James Lochhead on the colony system, after the model of Gogarburn Institution by Edinburgh and demonstrates the interest in functional but simple, strikingly designed buildings at that date. Despite a number of additions and alterations which do not always take account of the character of the individual blocks the overall effect of this complex was very good.

The hospital closed in 1998. Lanarkshire Television used a part of the buildings as a studio for a few years, but after that the buildings were abandoned and fell prey to vandalism. A major fire caused serious damage in 2004 and more recently in 2016. A playground latterly for urbexers there are many photographs of the derelict buildings to be found on the net. [Sources: Hamilton Advertiser, 18 May 1895; Evening Citizen, 14 May 1895; Scotsman, 15 May 1895; Lanarkshire Health Board, Hartwood Hospital, Minutes from 1883; Beckford St, Annual Reports Mental Hospitals Board, 1930s.]

HUNTER HEALTH CENTRE, Andrew Street, East Kilbride Built in 2012-14 to designs by Reaich & Hall. [Sources: Pevsner Architectural Guide, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, 2016.]

KELLO HOSPITAL, BIGGAR   Simon Linton Kello, a local bank manager, and his sister, bequeathed £20,000 for the erection of a hospital prior to the outbreak of the First World War. The war prevented the Kello Trust from beginning the project but in 1920 a temporary hospital was opened in the Christian Institute. In 1925 the memorial stone of the present building was laid and the hospital was formally opened on 12 November 1926. It was a simply designed building following the established plan for cottage hospitals.

There were initially just nine beds, six on the ground floor and three on the first floor. In 1937 the hospital was extended with the addition of the ward to the west. It provided eight beds for female patients and in the following year a verandah and day-room were added. In 1967, under the National Health Service, a male ward was added to the east and in 1973 the health centre was built on the adjacent site. [Sources: Peebleshire Advertiser & Courier, 23 October 1925.]

KILSYTH HEALTH CENTRE, off Airdrie Road    Built in 2013-15 to designs by Reiach & Hall. Two storey brick building. [Sources: Pevsner Architectural Guide, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, 2016.]

KIRKLANDS HOSPITAL, FALLSIDE ROAD, BOTHWELL   A new purpose‑built hospital for the mentally handicapped built on the site of the former Kirklands Asylum. The building, completed c.1990 to designs by Robert Watt Young Dobie for the Common Services Agency, ingeniously incorporates details from the original buildings.

Kirklands was built as a private asylum in 1870-1 to designs by Thomas Halket of Glasgow, on a site opposite the earlier establishment of Longdales Lunatic Asylum (see below). It was established by Dr Fairless for the middle classes, and designed to accommodate between 100 and 120 patients.  When first built it was described as having an imposing character, commanding agreeable prospects. It had a frontage of over 300 ft and of three storeys. Behind the outer wings contained the patients’ accommodation (males to the west, females to the east), and the residence of the proprietor, Dr Fairless, was in the centre wing. Patients had single rooms (9 or 10ft square) off a 7 ft-wide corridor used as a day room or for exercise, and with sitting rooms on the second floor. Wood-lined ‘strong rooms’ were provided for noisy patients at the ends of the wings. Earth closets ‘after Colonel Baird’s patent’ were installed. There was also a top-lit chapel on the third floor.

Kirklands Asylum was bought by the newly created Glasgow District Board of Lunacy in 1879. It was then enlarged and refurbished, Mr Broomhead, a local architect, designing Gothic additions. It re-opened as a District Asylum in April 1881 with accommodation for 200 patients. [Sources: The Architect, 18 Feb 1871, p.95: Glasgow Herald, 9 Feb 1871, p.4]

LADY HOME HOSPITAL, AYR ROAD, DOUGLAS   Founded by the Countess of Home in 1888, the Lady Home Hospital was originally known as the Douglas Cottage Hospital. It was built by James Kerr, the clerk of works on the Douglas estate.

The hospital provided ten beds and two cots for medical and surgical cases and there was formerly a wooden sanatorium with six beds to the rear.

The hospital’s design owes much to estate architecture and is also reminiscent of the design of schools which developed quickly after the 1871 Education Act; the schoolroom and the ward having similar requirements of space and ventilation. Modern glazing has marred the appearance of the dormers in particular.

In 1920 the management was transferred to the parish. At this time it adopted its present name. In 1936 a new wing was added with a female ward, maternity unit and a theatre, together with three bedrooms for staff.

During the Second World War the Scottish Hospitals Survey was carried out to make recommendations for a comprehensive medical service after the war.  A team of three eminent medical men surveyed the Western Region: Professor C. F. W. Illingworth, Professor J. M. Mackintosh and R. J. Peters. In their Report, published in 1946, Lady Home was described as satisfactory, ‘both from the point of view of construction and function’. It had accommodation for 20 patients, and served a useful purpose in a rural area where access to large hospitals was often difficult, and where there was a large mining population. It was recommended that it should continue as a ‘home hospital’, with a link to a larger district hospital.

Further additions were made in the mid-1960s with a new physiotherapy department and clinics. (see also Douglas Community Council website)

LADY HOZIER CONVALESCENT HOME, LANARK   Built as a convalescent home for the Glasgow Western Infirmary, this building was funded by Sir William Hozier of Mauldslie Castle, later first Lord Newlands, in memory of his wife. The home was to accommodate about 40 patients and was designed by J. L. Murray of Biggar, the architect of Hartwood Hospital. The Home was opened on 10th July 1893. The building is a simple symmetrical, two‑storey block with advanced gabled bays but with less charm than its neighbour, the former Lanark Poorhouse. It was not perhaps the choicest of location, with the poorhouse and fever hospital to one side and the auction mart and slaughter house on the other. However, all three buildings were still extant in 2015. A postal sorting office has been built behind the convalescent home (now Hozier House).

LANARK POORHOUSE, HYNDFORD ROAD, LANARK  The present Crosslaw House was built as the Lanark Poorhouse.

The plans by James Watson were drawn up in 1877 and follow the standard plan, modelled on the recommendations of the Board of Supervision. (The Dictionary of Scottish Architects states that the attribution of James Watson of Dundee is incorrect. It may be that it was James Watson, architect, of Lanark. The plans in the Scottish National Archives are by James Watson and Traill & Stewart, and cover a date range of 1877 to 1940, but I have not re-checked these. An article in The Glasgow Herald reporting on the laying of the foundation stone did not give the name of the architect – it merely stated that the Board had been careful in selecting an architect who was known personally to the members  and who ‘had proved himself worthy of their confidence by works he had carried out successfully in this locality’.  The building contractors listed were J & L Muir, masons; Bryce & Brown, joiners, both of Lanark; Procter & son, plumber, Edinburgh; Thomas Lithgow, slater and Stewart & Glaister, plasterers, also both of Lanark. The ceremony was presided over by Thomas Watson of Wheatpark, chairman of the Parochial Board.)

The former poorhouse is of two storeys, symmetrical, with three advanced gabled bays. It is a well‑detailed poorhouse with its façade enlivened by the use of contrasting masonry. The delicate roof ventilator with its cast‑iron cresting is a delightful touch. The poorhouse became known as the Crosslaw Home, probably after the Local Government Act transferred it to the management of the new Public Assistance Department, and in an effort to dispel the poorhouse stigma. The building was extended in 1937 and cared for the chronic sick and the elderly infirm.

There was an earlier poorhouse in Lanark in Broomgate, in the centre of the town. [Sources: Scottish Record Office, plans, RHP 30872/1‑16.]

Crosslaw home as a local-authority run facility was replaced by McClymont House which opened in 1993. Crosslaw was then taken over as a private care home. It was listed category B in 1993. Curiously, the recent Pevsner Architectural Guide for Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire (published in 2016), muddles this building with what was latterly the William Smellie Hospital – the original Lockhart Hospital – stating that this was the Bryce building, which it certainly is not. (This does, however, perhaps explain why they felt this was a subdued effort by Bryce, though that, in itself, might have set alarm bells ringing.)   [Sources. Information kindly supplied by Ken Liddell.]

Lanarkshire Miners Rehabilitation Centre, Uddingston

LAW HOSPITAL, CARLUKE  (largely demolished) This standard plan Emergency Medical Scheme hospital was designed by Cullen, Lochhead and Brown, to a brief from the Office of Works. It opened in 1939. The huts were laid out in four groups to provide 1,200 beds. The patients included a number of evacuees from the Central Middlesex Hospital in London, and one block of seven wards was occupied by German Prisoners of War.

A maternity unit was built on the site to replace the William Smellie Maternity Hospital in Lanark which closed in 1992. Services at Law Hospital were transferred to the new general hospital at Wishaw that opened in 2001, following which all of the Law buildings apart from the maternity unit were demolished. The redundant maternity unit was converted to house the offices of NHS Lanarkshire and renamed Law House. [Sources: Alistair MacKenzie and Julian Hodgson, ‘The History of Law Hospital’, in Glasgow Medicine, Vol.3, No.5, September‑October 1986: further information kindly supplied by Ken Liddell.]

LOCKHART HOSPITAL, LANARK (closed 2016) Lockhart Hospital was originally built as a fever hospital in 1889, and comprised just the central two ranges. The architect was Robert Sandilands, of the Glasgow firm, Thomson & Sandilands. It replaced the old fever house in Waterloo Road. By 1952 it had adopted its present name. Formerly the William Smellie Hospital had been named the Lockhart Hospital but in the 1950s its patients were transferred to the former fever block. The ward block to the east was a later addition, probably built in the 1920s or 30s.

Latterly the hospital provided respite and terminal care, and rehabilitation and general care for geriatric patients. It closed in 2016, its future use is at present uncertain.  [Sources. Information kindly supplied by Ken Liddell]

LONGDALES LUNATIC ASYLUM, BOTHWELL

LONGRIGGEND SANATORIUM (demolished)   Originally built as a fever hospital c.1894, the buildings were enlarged after 1910 (although the OS maps do not support this) and equipped as the county sanatorium. It had 34 beds by 1913 including six in an open pavilion on the ‘Aberdeen‑plan’. It seems still to have been in existence in the 1950s but by the 1960s the buildings had been demolished and a remand institution built on the southern part of the site. [Sources:Architect & Building News, 25 July 1930, p.132.]

MONKLANDS DISTRICT GENERAL HOSPITAL, AIRDRIE   Built on the site of Airdrie House, the new hospital which opened in 1977 consists of an outer ring of largely single‑storey departments and a central two‑storey main block housing the theatres, flanked by two six-storey slab blocks containing the wards.It was designed by Keppie Henderson & Partners.

In 2014 a Maggie’s Centre was built to designs by Reiach & Hall: the Elizabeth Montgomerie Building, a single-storey building with enclosed courtyard gardens on either side, retaining what remained of the shelter belt of lime trees planted to the north of Airdrie House. [Sources: Pevsner Architectural Guide, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, 2016.]

MOTHERWELL MATERNITY HOSPITAL   Motherwell Maternity Hospital, with its unassuming gable‑fronted elevation to the main road, is of particular interest for its historical value and its plan rather than its aesthetic merit.

The Carnegie UK Trustees gifted £18,000 to the Corporation of Motherwell and Wishaw to establish a maternity home and child welfare clinic. It was the first large purpose‑built maternity and child welfare and special treatment centre in Scotland, opening on 16 June 1923, and was designed by W. M. Bishop. The plan was used as a model by John Wilson, architect to the Scottish Board of Health, in an article on the planning of public health institutions in Scotland. The centre consisted of a maternity section to which expectant mothers would go for advice and treatment together with a child welfare centre where children would be weighed, examined and treated. Other key features included a special treatment centre for children aged one to five years, a dental clinic, skin clinic and a lecture and demonstration room.

The buildings are still in NHS use and seem well preserved, albeit with new roofs, it is now Airbles Road Centre, it provides mental health and rehabilitation services. [Sources: John Wilson ‘Notes on the Planning of Sanatoria, Infectious Diseases Hospitals, and other Public Health Institutions’, in Journal of the R.I.B.A., Vol.XXIX, No.10, 25 March 1922, p.289‑301; Vol.XXXIX, No.11, 8 April 1922, p.340‑4. p.340.]

MOTHERWELL POORHOUSE, PARK STREET (demolished) (see also Airbles Hospital and Cleland Hospital above) Built around 1867 for the Cambusnethen combination.

With the massive expansion and industrialization of the area in the later nineteenth century more extensive accommodation was required and the poorhouse was replaced by a new building (see Airbles Hospital, above)

OLD MONKLAND POORHOUSE, COATBRIDGE    (see also Coathill Hospital above)

PHILIPSHILL HOSPITAL, EAST KILBRIDE (largely demolished)  Philipshill was built as an auxiliary hospital for the Victoria Infirmary. The desirability of such a hospital was first put forward in 1923 and an appeal made for funds. In March 1925 the site was selected and Watson, Salmond and Gray appointed as architects. It was planned to be built in stages, initially a section with fifty beds was built. The eventual building was to have two hundred beds. The buildings were all finished with traditional harl and red sandstone dressings.

The design of the administration block, in particular the shaped gable above the entrance, derives from the Cape Dutch style, very popular for domestic architecture at this date. The proportions of the windows and the glazing pattern were an essential part of the design.

The cohesion of the planning and execution are of particular interest. The original plan for the hospital consisted of a range of six single‑storey pavilions with a central two‑storey administration and entrance block. A covered corridor to the rear would link the wards and gave the plan a double E‑form. Added to this were two further pavilions to the rear, service buildings and nurses’ home. The hospital faced east and on the south side of the wards verandas were built. At the south end, the terminating pair of wards were canted to form a half‑butterfly plan.

A chapel (the only part of the hospital still extant) was also part of the original scheme and in 1929 Miss Innes agreed to give £10,000 towards its construction in memory of her brother, John Innes, a Glasgow ship owner. The chapel was dedicated on 16 October 1931. It is a fine sturdy design influenced by Sir J. J. Burnet’s ecclesiastical work and definitely rooted in traditional church building. The simple interior, with its broad stone arch before the altar was in a sadly neglected state when visited in 1989. The bold squat tower with the stair turret is an ingenious way of giving stature to a small building.

The completion of the hospital was aided by a grant of £20,000 from the Nuffield Trust for the establishment of an orthopaedic unit to function alongside the new fracture clinic at the Victoria. With the onset of the Second World War the wards were to be incorporated in the Emergency Medical Scheme (EMS) but were not constructed on the standard EMS hut‑plan on the understanding that after the War they should be utilised for orthopaedic patients. By 1946 there were ten pavilions. In 1957 a new orthopaedic school and workshop was opened and in 1959 the orthopaedic children’s unit at Hairmyres was transferred to Philipshill. In 1971 a 29‑bed Spinal Injuries Unit was opened. [Sources: Greater Glasgow Health Board, Annual Reports of Victoria Infirmary.]

ROADMEETINGS HOSPITAL, CARLUKE (mostly demolished)   Formerly the local authority infectious diseases hospital, the earliest buildings on the site opened in 1897 as the Braidwood Hospital. A new fever pavilion and administration block were added in 1906, designed by Alexander Cullen. These blocks were superseded in the 1920s by new wards and a new administration block and gate lodge which form the nucleus of the present hospital.

The new hospital, designed by James Lochhead, opened in November 1928. The colonial‑style administration block of two storeys and attic is a neat building with mansard roof and central entrance bay with mansarded gable. It has contrasting white roughcasting on the walls with exposed brick on the central bay and at ground level up to the window bases. The wards are single‑storey, picking up the same themes, with verandas to the south. By 1946 there were 105 beds at the hospital which included 26 beds for TB patients. A new social day centre was added in 1975. [Sources: Lanark Local History Library, Scrapbook of news cuttings.]

ST MARY’S HOSPITAL, LANARK The building is now situated in Glebe Drive. It was built to the north-west of St Mary’s R.C. church in the 1860s and was run by the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul. They also ran the orphanage on the outskirts of Lanark at Smyllum Park.

It became an auxiliary hospital during the First World War, and hutted hospital annexes were added during the Second World War as part of the Emergency Medical Scheme. By the 1960s it had become a convalescent home and geriatric unit. The west wing was badly damaged by a fire in 1969. By the 1980s it had been acquired as local council offices.  [Sources: Glasgow Herald, 19 Feb 1969]

SHOTTS HEALTH CENTRE, Station Road  Built in 1997 on a prominent site, long and low, with ribbed metal roofs. [Sources: Pevsner Architectural Guide, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, 2016.]

SHOTTS HOSPITAL, Benhar Road (demolished)  Shotts Hospital was built as a fever hospital. It was, like nearby Longriggend, converted in 1910 into a county sanatorium. The original hospital was brick‑built and consisted of the usual administration block and two ward blocks with laundry and other ancillary buildings.

STONEHOUSE HOSPITAL, STONEHOUSE   Stonehouse Hospital was originally built as a local authority infectious diseases hospital for the Middle Ward of Lanarkshire c.1896.

The original buildings had a simple domestic character with a rather irregular roofline. It later developed as a sanatorium for non‑pulmonary TB. In 1916 a Theatre and X‑ray Block was designed by Gavin Paterson of Hamilton and added to the east of the main buildings. During the Second World War hutted ward blocks were built on the site under the Emergency Medical Scheme. These provided a further fourteen wards, theatre and X‑ray room, garage, stores and nurses’ home.

With the inauguration of the National Health Service it continued as an orthopaedic, TB and small general hospital. At the eastern edge of the site, nearest to the town, a former Slaughter House was acquired by the hospital and was latterly used as the building office.

All the former hospital buildings have been demolished and a new hospital built at the eastern edge of the site which opened in May 2004 providing in-patient care for the elderly and a range of out-patient clinics.  [Sources: Lanarkshire Health Board, some plans at the hospital: Medical Officer of Health for Lanarkshire, 13th Annual Report, 1903.]

STRATHCLYDE HOSPITAL, MOTHERWELL (largely demolished)  The hospital was formed from two separate hospitals for infectious diseases built next to each other. The more substantial stone buildings were provided by the District Council for the Middle Ward of Lanarkshire, and the Burgh Council built ‘temporary’ corrugated iron blocks, which were still remarkably preserved in the late 1980s.

The District Hospital was designed by the Hamilton architect, Alexander Cullen and the administration building in particular bears a close resemblance to his Omoa Poorhouse, (later Cleland Hospital). The principal elevation of the administration block was punctuated by broad gabled sections which were further emphasised by relieving arches to the windows and shallow oriels in the gable‑heads. When the hospital opened on 25 October 1897 there were 100 beds in four fever pavilions and one observation pavilion. The ward blocks were placed on a north‑south axis to admit maximum sunshine.

A nurses’ home was added in 1910 and two further ward pavilions added c.1914 with another built in 1918. In 1920 more additions to the site included another two‑storey ward block and staff houses. It was not until 1 February 1950, well after the inception of the National Health Service, that the adjacent Burgh Hospital was amalgamated with the District Hospital and the two became known as the Strathclyde Hospital.

UDSTON HOSPITAL, BURNBANK, HAMILTON   Udston house is a substantial stone‑built villa designed in about the mid 1850s for Lewis Potter, one of the directors of the City of Glasgow Bank held responsible for that bank’s failure in 1878. There had been a house on the site from 1593 belonging to John Hamilton of Udston, an ancestor of Lord Bellhaven and Stenton whose wife purchased the present house in 1893 from the executors of John Clark Forrest. Georgiana Lady Belhaven and Stenton acquired the villa as a summer residence. It was altered in 1897 and around 1911 by Gavin Paterson.

In 1879 Hamilton Parochial Board and the Burgh Police Commissioners formed a Joint Committee to set up an infectious diseases hospital. They acquired a site adjacent to the Infantry Barracks and the Poorhouse. In 1919 this building was vacated and the patients removed to Udston House in May. In 1920 the neighbouring Glenlee House (to the north) was opened for pulmonary TB cases with a joint Matron. A new single‑storey ward pavilion, operating theatre and Laundry were built at Udston in 1930, Cullen, Lochhead & Brown were the architects. A large new unit was built to the south of the original buildings possibly late 1990s/2000s. [Sources: Pevsner Architectural Guide, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, 2016.]

VICTORIA MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, KILSYTH   The hospital was founded in response to the need for a hospital to deal with accidents from the local mines.

William Baird & Co. were the owners of the majority of the mines in the district and their employees funded the hospital out of their wages. Although primarily for accidents there was also provision for private patients whose families worked in the mines. It opened c.1903 and initially there were twelve beds in two wards, one for females of five beds and the male ward with seven beds. It was designed by Ronald Walker of Stirling in a quiet Arts and Crafts style, with the wards in gabled bays on either side of the main block containing the recessed entrance with timber verandah. The hospital was extended in 1974 and day rooms added. [Sources. Pevsner Architectural Guide, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, 2016.]

WESTER MOFFAT HOSPITAL, AIRDRIE   Wester Moffat House, built 1859‑62, was one of the architect Charles Wilson’s late designs. He died a year after its completion, and it was considered, with Rutherglen Town Hall, to be one of his finest designs in the Scottish Baronial style. It was built for William Towers-Clark, solicitor, whose initials were incorporated in the stonwork of the south elevation. An extension was built in 1865 to designs by Wilson’s partner, David Thomason, to create a new porch.

David Thomson described the house in his article on the works of Charles Wilson in the proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow in 1882.

‘Wester Moffat is designed with a view to produce a pile of a high castellated character, more like the old baronial fortalice… and in this it is very successful. The area of the plan has been kept as small as possible and brought nearly to a square, while the building has been raised upon a basement and carried up to a third floor, with a square tower over the entrance and high turrets on the angles. There are no lower buildings attached to the main part, detracting from its height, and the whole presents an assemblage of high pointed and picturesque forms, which group themselves to form a design of great boldness and variety. There is an air of compactness, breadth, richness, unity of effect, and variety of detail about this house… but, as is always the case, something has been sacrificed for it, and I reckon one of those things to be the placing of the kitchen offices in the basement.’

The mansion house was acquired by Airdrie Burgh Council c.1927 to develop the site as a sanatorium. Ward pavilions were built in the grounds to provide 50 beds and the new hospital was opened by Major Walter Elliot MP. in January 1929.

The house, now used as office accommodation, has some fine interior details including a painted glass window in the entrance porch. The site is well preserved, the hospital ward blocks surviving with some modernisation and additions.[Sources: Lancet, January 26, 1929: D. Thomson, ‘Charles Wilson’ in Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, 1882.]

WILLIAM SMELLIE HOSPITAL, LANARK   This hospital is a particularly good example of the adaptation of the Scottish Baronial style to a public building. The wings are firmly anchored by angle turrets with candle snuffer roofs and provide a frame for the crowstepped central block.

Originally called the Lockhart Hospital, in 1948 a maternity unit was opened and subsequently the hospital took the name of William Smellie in honour of the nineteenth‑century obstetrician from Lanark. The hospital had been founded by Sir Simon McDonald Lockhart, Bart. of Lee and Carnwath. A temporary hospital was opened in 1871 and its success led to the establishing of the present building which was larger and purpose built. It was designed by David Bryce, the architect of Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary. The main block of two storeys, is flanked by two projecting wings containing the wards. The foundation stone was laid in December 1874 and the hospital was opened on 13 January 1877.

During the Second World War an extension was built to the rear as part of the Emergency Medical Scheme. After the war it lay unused for some years until it was remodelled as a maternity unit to act as an annexe to Bellshill Hospital. It opened as such in 1948. In 1955 the entire hospital was used for maternity cases, and the name was then changed in  honour of William Smellie. The renaming was due to the work of Dr Sam Cameron, eminent obstetrician and champion of the Lanark-born ‘Father of Midwifery’.

In 1992 the hospital closed and services were transferred to Law Hospital, to a new purpose-built maternity unit that retained the name of William Smellie. This too was superseded by the maternity unit at the new Wishaw general hospital in 2001. Back in Lanark, the Bryce building (listed category B in 1980) was shorn of its war-time extensions and converted into flats with a housing developed in the grounds. [Sources: A. D. Robertson, Lanark the Burgh and its Councils 1469‑1880, Lanark, 1974. Further information kindly supplied by Ken Liddell.]

WISHAW GENERAL HOSPITAL, off Netherton Street, Built in 1998-2001 to designs by Percy Thomas Partnership. This replaced the former Wishaw Hospital, whose distinguishing feature by the 1980s was created by the severe subsidence problems in the area and the resultant deviations from the perpendicular of the stone blocks. The Burgh Engineer produced plans c.1910 for four corrugated‑iron and wood pavilions and stone administration block. In about 1875 there had been an earlier hospital on the site for smallpox and a larger fever hospital was built by Wishaw Burgh Council in 1877, which was managed jointly by the Burgh and the County until 1899, when the Town Council took over. Eventually the earlier hospital was replaced by the hospital that served the town until the late 1990s. From 1920 until 1965 it concentrated on TB patients after the combination of Motherwell and Wishaw burghs.

WISHAW HEALTH CENTRE, Kenilworth Avenue, Built in 2015 to designs by Reiach & Hall. It forms part of a larger complex that also contains a library and council offices. [Sources: Pevsner Architectural Guide, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, 2016.]