View of main block from SE Digital image of D 25688 cn

Description View of main block from SE Digital image of D 25688 cn

Date 28/1/1997

Catalogue Number SC 776752

Category On-line Digital Images

Scope and Content Female Hospital, Dingleton Hospital, Dingleton Road, Melrose, Scottish Borders, from the south-east (latterly known as Glentress and Traquair wards which closed 2001) This low range of buildings, designed by Sydney Mitchell & Wilson, was built as a series of inter-connecting units and opened in 1899 to house female patients. It was constructed in similar sandstone and in a similar architectural style as the main hospital block with piended (hipped) roofs and timber-bracketed eaves, but the original windows, chimneys and ventilation shafts have now been either replaced or removed. The units included an isolation ward (left), a day room dormitory with a large bay window (centre), and a bathroom and lavatory block with an unusual steeply pitched roof (right) that was originally topped by a ventilation shaft concealed within an ornamental turret. The interior was painted in bright colours which were designed to produce a therapeutic effect in patients, and the windows painted white and the floors varnished. The furnishings throughout were made from American yellow pine, and all the angles in the rooms and corridors were rounded, as this was considered to be soothing to the troubled mind. The bathrooms and toilets had unusual cement floors tinted red, and walls lined with white ceramic tiles. Great care was taken to ensure adequate ventilation, and the ceilings carried tubes to expel 'foul' and 'noxious' air through the roof. The layout included a dining room, recreation room, observation ward, padded room and nurses' home as well as dormitory and single room sleeping accommodation for patients. Dingleton Hospital, designed by the architects, Wardrop & Brown, opened in 1872 as the District Asylum for Melrose. It provided accommodation for 200 patients from the counties of Roxburgh, Berwick and Selkirk and replaced the private asylum at Milholme House in Musselburgh which had been licensed for pauper lunatics on a temporary basis until the new asylum at Melrose was completed. The site was substantially developed between 1895 and 1905 when a new hospital block for female patients, new recreational and dining facilities, and a new male hospital block were added to designs by the architectural firm, Sydney Mitchell & Wilson. In 1936 a nurses' home, designed by Tarbolton & Ochterlony, was constructed in the grounds. The hospital closed in 2001. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/776752

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap