Interior-general view of Sitting Room in South Craig Villa

Description Interior-general view of Sitting Room in South Craig Villa

Date 1895

Collection Records of Bedford Lemere and Company, photographers, London, England

Catalogue Number BL 13252

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 702018, B 64335

Scope and Content Ladies' Parlour, South Craig Villa, Craighouse Mental Asylum, Craighouse Road, Edinburgh (latterly the Royal Edinburgh Hospital and presently part of Napier University) South Craig Villa, one of three separate villas that lay within the Craighouse Mental Asylum complex, was designed in 1889 by the architect, Sydney Mitchell, as residential accommodation for female patients. Harry Bedford Lemere was commissioned to photograph the interior in 1895. The parlour has a large west-facing bay window, a south-facing window close to the bay, and a chimneypiece with a mirrored overmantel in the south wall. The walls have dado panelling, and a frieze with delicate swagged detailing. The room is lit by elaborate gas wall brackets. South Craig Villa, the first asylum building to be completed, was described as being 'bright and cheerful within and without', and 'finished tastefully' with 'much colour used in its decoration'. It met with such general approval that among its first residents were several ladies who decided to enter as voluntary patients. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Medium Glass

External Reference Box 26

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