We explore an abandoned psychiatric hospital in Scotland, the earliest surviving asylum there is here.
Sitting on top of this hill since 1821, overlooking the surrounding park land, it was designed to be a pleasant place for vulnerable people to be cared for.
Originally built with accommodation for 80 patients, officials and staff, its capacity started to grow by 1833 and additional units, external villas for higher class patients and a chapel were added to the site.
You are greeted on arrival by a stunning octagonal atrium, flooding the entrance hall with natural light. Wards radiate off in every direction where patients were classified into male and female, rich and poor, curable and incurable.
The site was extended right up until the 1970s, eventually creating what remains here today.
Silent, dilapidated corridors, an empty library and a forgotten ballroom.
One the most intact memories of the bygone institutions we have left in this country.
For the people who spent virtually their whole lives here, the ballroom was the one place they could come and enjoy themselves. Theatres, orchestras and bands would perform on the stage, music would have filled the halls every Friday night... now the decay creeps in as it sits here silently.
The asylum library had the power to soothe, animate, depress, excite, instruct and amuse. A form of escape for the otherwise confined patients.
Bibliotherapy... ‘the vast importance of reading and study in the management of the insane’
Come along as we document what’s left, 8 years after it closed its doors...
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16 окт 2024
