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Inverness, Leachkin Road, Northern Counties District Asylum, Superintendent's House View from SE Digital image of E 3023 cn

SC 776667

Description Inverness, Leachkin Road, Northern Counties District Asylum, Superintendent's House View from SE Digital image of E 3023 cn

Date 12/6/2000

Catalogue Number SC 776667

Category On-line Digital Images

Scope and Content Physician Superintendent's House, Craig Dunain Hospital, Leachkin Road, Inverness, Highland (now closed) This substantial two-storeyed, three-bayed, red sandstone rubble house was probably also designed by James Mathews. It has a large, advanced gable (left) with a bay window denoting the principal ground-floor room, and dormer windows with prominent pediments. The elaborate square entrance porch has a mock circular tower topped by a dome at its outer corner. The house was built within the grounds of the asylum for Dr Thomas Aitken, physician superintendent from 1864 until 1892. Aitken had overall responsibility for the running of the hospital as well as for the male patients (a matron had responsibility for the female patients), and his duties included the supervision of the diet, clothing and exercise of the patients, as well as their recreation and religious provision. Casebooks were introduced which showed the medical treatment offered to each patient, and whether and to what extent 'restraint and seclusion' was employed. Many of the patients, however, were not mentally ill, but often those who simply did not fit into Victorian society, such as unmarried mothers, epileptics and the physically disabled. Others simply admitted themselves into the asylum, believing it to be a better place than the outside world. Craig Dunain Hospital, designed by the Aberdeen architect, James Matthews (1808-98), opened in 1864 as the Northern Counties District Lunatic Asylum with accommodation for 250-300 patients in single rooms. It was the third District Asylum to be built in Scotland, and occupies a splendid hillside site above Inverness. Additions were made in 1898-1901 to include male and female wards, and further expansion in the 1920s and 1930s saw the construction of a large recreation hall and a nurses' home. The last major building scheme before the hospital closed in 2000 included the construction of a new chapel which was completed in 1963. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/776667

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap

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