View of main building from E

Description View of main building from E

Date 17/11/1993

Catalogue Number SC 776397

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of C 17792 CN

Scope and Content Main Building, Hartwood Hospital, Shotts, North Lanarkshire, from the east (now closed and mainly demolished) This south-facing main hospital building has a large, two-storeyed advanced central block (left) with canted windows and crowstepped gables, and three-storeyed wings set back on each side. Square twin towers with crenellated parapets and angle stair-turrets rise from the rear of the central block. The east tower (right) has a large clock face on each of its elevations, and the west tower has a similarly sized circular weathervane with bar dials set into each of its four sides. The central block contained the public rooms including a large dining hall that could accommodate 600 patients and staff on the ground floor, and a magnificent recreation hall with a seating capacity for 1,200 people on the floor above. A great bell, weighing almost one ton, hung in the east (right) clock-tower, and was used to summon patients to the dining hall at meal times. The kitchen, sculleries and general stores were on the ground floor at the rear of the central block, and were supplied by a private branch railway line that ran from the main Caledonian Railway Company's line connecting Glasgow to Edinburgh, and delivered goods and coal by railway wagon directly to the back door of the hospital. The east and west wings contained the male and female sections of the hospital, each section being sub-divided into separate blocks for the treatment of chronic, acute and senile patients. Hartwood Hospital, a large Baronial-style building with imposing twin towers, was designed by the architect, John L Murray of Biggar (d.1909), and occupied one of the largest hospital sites in Scotland. It was built as the District Asylum for Lanark and opened in 1895 with accommodation for 500 lunatic patients. Between 1898 and 1916 additions included two large ward blocks, each linked to the rear of the main building by a covered corridor, a sanatorium for the isolation of patients suffering from tuberculosis, and a new admission hospital. In 1931 a new nurses' home, designed by the architect, James Lochhead (1870-1942), opened to the south of the complex, and in c.1935, a new site was developed at nearby Hartwood Hill in response to the growing need for accommodation for mentally handicapped adults. The hospital is now closed and mainly demolished. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/776397

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap