Glasgow, Gartloch Road, Gartloch Hospital: Administration Block

Part of a group of asylum buildings in French Renaissance style with Scottish Baronial details in red sandstone. Former Administration Block: 3-storey 13-bay symmetrical block with 2 imposing stair/water towers, single pile with corridor. Base course, ground floor band course, 1st floor cill course, 2nd floor cill band and eaves cornice. 2nd floor windows breaking eaves in mannered dormerheads with varied finials (eaves cornice serving as transom). Ashlar mullions and transoms.

The complex was built as the City of Glasgow District Asylum for pauper lunatics. Thomson and Sandilands won the competition for the design in 1889 and it was constructed between 1892-6. The important feature which was introduced at Gartloch for the first time in a new asylum in Scotland was the provision of an independent "hospital" section, distinct from the asylum section. This was for the treatment of medical cases, including infectious diseases. It included its own kitchen and dining hall. Another important feature of the hospital in the asylum section is the patient accommodation blocks which are in the form of "villas" linked to the service block and administration offices by enclosed link corridors. The link corridors were omitted in later asylums to create a true colony plan. The plan of Gartloch was highly influential in Britain and is still in an excellent state of preservation. An innovative feature of the hospital section was the U-plan front block with central administration offices flanked by observation and admission wards. This feature was adapted from the infectious diseases hospitals and was reproduced in later district asylums and the early mental deficiency hospitals. The other innovative feature in the hospital section is its kitchen and dining hall which made it entirely independent from the main asylum. The nurses home designed in 1898 (though dated 1895), was added to S of asylum complex and opened in 1900 to provide 60 beds for nursing staff, it closely resembles the villas in the asylum section(Historic Scotland)