Visit Date August 2006
Bangour Village Hospital
Architect ?
Opened 1884
Patients no patient information though 200 staff
Closed 1999
Other Was recently used for the exterior filming of "The Jacket"
The first of the locations I visited while on my Scotland trip. The scale of Bangour is immense with 31 Villas! Also on site there is a very institutional looking Nurses block, Industrial therapy unit, Main Hall complex, Village Hospital Shop, Administration, Stores, Boiler house etc. A church designed by Harold O. Tarbolton was built in the 1920's as a non denominational church in memoriam for the staff members who were killed during the First World War.
During the WWI the War Office overtook the hospital and it was used as a military hospital, during this time it reached its maximum numbers of patients 3000! Many of which were crammed into temporary huts and even large marquees!!
The hospital was returned to Psychiatric use in 1922 but was again turned into a War Hospital with the advent of WWII.
The hospital began a slow closure in the beginning of the 1990's due the Care in the Community and finally closed in 1999. A lot of the buildings are listed so cannot be demolished which has left a big question over the future of the site due to it being so spread out, housing is the most probable answer but any planner must make sure that the Hall is still used for its original function in some form.
Walking around the site it becomes very clear just how big the site is and also how remote..... This was probably made worse by the weather that day which fluctuated between a mild storm and a vertical sea!
A lot of the buildings are boarded allowing no access, some others including the Village shop and Hall are regularly used for dog training, which was actually happening the very day we visited, it was very strange to walk around a corner and see a dog hanging off the arm of a trainer!!
We did manage to enter a few of the buildings including the Industrial therapy unit where patients were
involved in activities such as woodwork and picture framing. An older villa ward held a few suprises including patient art on the walls and a Dictaphone of strange noises!!!