ABERFELDY COTTAGE HOSPITAL, Old Crieff Road   The building is dated 1909 and opened on 27 October 1910. It was erected under the auspices of Sir Donald Currie of Garth on a site granted free by the Marquis of Breadalbane. It was designed by Dunn & Watson to blend in with the local architecture, being single-storey, white-harled with crowstepped gables and green slate roof.

It is an excellent example of sensitive planning and design in the Lorimeresque tradition. The hospital was extended in the 1920s and was transferred to the National Health Service in 1948. It is now Aberfeldy Community Hospital. [Sources :N. D. Mackay, Aberfeldy Past and Present, 1954: Perth Royal Infirmary: Aberfeldy Cottage Hospital Minute Books, 1880-1945. see also The Maclaren Society‘s website]

ATHOLE AND BREADALBANE POORHOUSE, LOGIERAIT   The poorhouse at Logierait was designed in 1861 by J. C. Walker, a specialist in the design of such institutions. He was the architect for the poorhouses for Galashiels (1859), Dysart (1860), Dumbarton (1862), Auchterarder (1862, see Strathearn Home below) and Islay (1865). He also designed Waverley Hydrophathic Institution near Montrose, an early concrete building, erected in 1869-71.

The poorhouse at Logierait  opened on 25 January 1864. It is remarkably plain, even considering its function. Earlier in the twentieth century, probably in the 1920s, it changed its name to the Cuil-an-Daraich Home. It was never transferred to the National Health Service, but the building survives {as of 1990} and appears to have been converted to private residences. [Sources: Dundee City Archives, Poorhouse Minutes: see also workhouses.org]

BLAIRGOWRIE COTTAGE HOSPITAL, Perth Road   The Blairgowrie and Rattray District Cottage hospital was built in 1901, at a cost of £2,643, to designs by L. & J. Falconer. In 1940 the Dr Hood and Dr Shaw Memorial Wing was added, providing a further eight bedrooms and staff accommodation.

By the early 1960s the hospital had an operating theatre and X-ray plant, ran an outpatient clinic and a surgeon in weekly attendance to carry out operations. It is now Blairgowrie Community Hospital. A new GP unit opened here in 2014. [Sources: RCAHMS, National Monuments Record of Scotland: 3rd Statistical Account of Scotland, Perth and Kinross, 1979]

BRIDGE OF EARN HOSPITAL (demolished)   One of the seven new Emergency Medical Scheme hospitals constructed in Scotland during the Second World War.

It opened in 1940 with 1,020 beds. The original expectation was for these EMS hospitals to take civilian casualties, but as these did not occur in the early stages of the war, initially patients came from nearby military camps. Bridge of Earn also took patients evacuated from general hospitals and TB cases. At times, prisoners of war here were also accommodated here.

In 1946 the war-time rehabilitation unit set up at Gleneagles Hotel was transferred to Bridge of Earn, and the following year the orthopaedic unit from Larbert moved here. The hospital was transferred to the National Health Service after its inception in 1948. In 1990 the hospital still presented much of the character of its original appearance although the hutted ward blocks had been refurbished.

Not long after that, in 1992, the hospital closed and the site was cleared around 2006. It was acquired as the site of a new housing estate, named the Oudenarde Village project, the first phase of which was scheduled to begin in 2008. Development was ongoing in 2016. [Sources: University of Dundee, archives and Museum Services website ]

BUCHANAN HOUSE OF RECOVERY, HATTON ROAD, NEW RATTRAY This small convalescent home was established by Emily Octavia Buchanan, in memory of her husband, Thomas Ryburn Buchanan, M.P. and former Under secretary of State for India, who had died in 1911. It was built in 1915. The plans were drawn up by the local architect Lake Falconer (though whether the father or son is not clear, the father had supposedly retired but the son was serving abroad in the Royal Artillery), in consultation with Reginald Fairlie, Mrs Buchanan’s nephew. Fairlie’s influence is apparent in the Arts & Crafts detailing, such as the swept slate roofs. It was built of red Locharbriggs freestone and square rubble from a nearby quarry. The south elevation features a central gable and the flanking wings have stout verandahs where patients could sit out but still be sheltered. There was accommodation for male and female patients on the ground floor and staff in the attics.

When it was completed it was handed over to the Red Cross as a convalescent home for wounded soldiers run by the local voluntary aid detachment. In 1919 it was returned to the trustees and reopened for convalescents, primarily from East Perthshire on 4 July 1919. Lake Falconer served as secretary to the directors of the home. Latterly it was used as an a home for the elderly, and around 2002 was being run by the Sargent Cancer Care for Children. More recently it has been converted into flats. [Sources:  3rd Statistical Account of Scotland, Perth and Kinross, 1979: Dundee Courier, 26 Sept 1924, p.8: Perthshire Advertiser, 15 Sept 1915, p.2]

BURGHMUIR HOSPITAL, HILLEND ROAD, PERTH   Built as the county infectious diseases hospital Burghmuir Hospital. The land had been acquired by 1898, and two portable hospital buildings erected on the site. In 1899 these were filled to capacity with scarlet fever cases. The medical officer of health for Perth recommended the addition of a ward block by Speirs & Co with 20 adult beds (or 40 for children), an admin block and outbuildings. In 1911 it was enlarged with ward accommodation for a further 34 beds and a new administration block was built.

It was here that the first geriatric day clinic in the UK was established by Ronald (Ronnie) Simpson, one of the founding fathers of geriatric care in Scotland. It started in one room within the hospital but later in a separate building on the site that was specially adapted for the purpose. The hospital closed in 1981. [Sources: Dundee Courier, 25 Oct 1898; p.3, 9 Jan 1899, p.3: Royal College of Physicians, Lives of the Fellows: http://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/245190%5D

CRIEFF COMMUNITY HOSPITAL, King Street Built to replace the cottage hospital in Pittenzie Street (below), the new hospital was designed by the Common Services Agency and opened in 1995. The CSA was privatised around 1994 and construction was completed by W. S. Atkins Health Care Ltd.

Its most distinctive feature is a Postmodern porch. The site chosen was next to the health centre, built in 1970. This was replaced by a new medical centre in 2001, designed on a butterfly plan by Panton Sargent. [Sources: John Gifford, Pevsner Architecutral Guide: Perth & Kinross, 2007]

CRIEFF COTTAGE HOSPITAL, Pittenzie Street (demolished)   A competition was held for the design of this cottage hospital which was won by Edward Maidmen in 1906. Maidmen had won the competition for Moffat Cottage hospital the previous year, and had designed numerous hospitals in his career, having gained early experience in hospital design working with Frederick Wheeler and Henry Saxon Snell.

The hospital closed in 1996, and has been replaced by a community hospital in King Street, which opened in 1995. The former hospital was demolished and Glenearn Court, sheltered housing for the elderly, erected on the site.

DUNBLANE HOSPITAL FOR CONSUMPTION, DOUNE ROAD (demolished)  A small wood and iron hospital was opened in 1909, but seems to have been replaced by a more substantial building off the Doune Road in the 1920s. By the late 1930s it was being used as a youth hostel, and continued as such until the 1960s or early 70s. It was then demolished and the area developed for housing.

DUNBLANE HYDRO  The Hydro opened in 1878. It was built at a cost of around £60,000 to designs by Peddie & Kinnear.

The first resident medical officer was a Dr Clark who supervised a range of hydropathic treatments. By the late 1890s it had been acquired by Andrew Philp, who had also taken over the Glenburn Hydro, Rothesay. Philp advertised a range of luxurious facilities indoors and out, from billiard rooms and a ladies’ writing room to a golf course, bowling green and tennis courts. It also offered an extensive range of water treatments with a small swimming bath, as well as Russian, Turkish, plunge, douche, needle, spray, sitz, vapour, medicated and pine baths.

During the First World War the hydro was requisitioned by the War Office for use as a military hospital. During the Second World War it was used to re-house evacuated pupils from a girls’ boarding school and as a convalescent home for soldiers (not at the same time). The hydro is still operating as a luxury hotel.

FRIARTON HOSPITAL, PERTH (demolished)   Friarton Hospital was opened in October 1906 by Sir Robert Puller as an infectious diseases hospital. A competition was held for the design in 1904 which received 51 entries and was judged by Thomas Aldwinkle. The first prize was awarded to G. P. K. Young of Perth. [Dundee Evening Telegraph, 30 May 1904]

After the hospital closed, the site was taken over as a Borstal Institution, latterly Friarton Hall Young Offenders Institution, serving as an annexe to the main prison. It closed in 2010. The buildings have now been demolished to make way for a housing development.

FRIARTON SMALLPOX HOSPITAL, PERTH A smallpox hospital was erected by the river at Friarton by the Police Commissioners around 1881, perhaps in response to an outbreak of the disease in 1878.

The grey-harled single-storey buildings would appear to have survived, at least until around 2010, as a part of the Friarton Industrial estate. [Sources: Dundee, Perth, Forfar, and Fife’s People’s Journal 28 May 1881]

GLENLOMOND HOSPITAL, KINROSS   Glenlomond Hospital was built as the TB sanatorium for the joint counties of Fife and Kinross, by Alexander C. Dewar of Leven, opening in 1919.

It was built on a hill-side site overlooking Loch Leven. When the need for such sanatoria declined it was converted for use by mentally handicapped and psycho‑geriatric patients. After the closure of the hospital in 1987 the site was developed as private housing.

HILLSIDE HOSPITAL, Dundee Road, Perth   (demolished) Originally founded in 1876 for incurables, it moved to this site in 1883, and became known as Hillside Home.  and in 1888 a building was provided for patients suffering from consumption.

In 1901 Barnhill Sanatorium was opened. This was probably the building referred to in 1898 in The Builder as a new hospital for consumptives to be built in connection with Hillside Hospital to designs by John Murray Robertson.

In 1908 the villa adjacent to Hillside was purchased and converted for the treatment of phthisis (TB). The hospital was maintained by public endowment and subscription and mainly took paying patients with some ‘deserving cases’ being admitted free of charge. Further extensions were carried out to the south in 1928, by Heiton & McKay, and to the north in 1932 by Smart, Stewart & Mitchell.

The hospital closed in 1997, and was demolished in 2007 to make way for a housing development. [Sources: The Builder, 30 April 1898, p.424: Perth Royal Infirmary, Hillside Hospital Minutes 1875‑1948: John Gifford Perth & Kinross, Pevsner Guide,  ]

THE HOME (Cottage Hospital), HOME STREET, ABERFELDY

IRVINE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, PITLOCHRY    The Irvine Memorial Nursing Home was built in 1901 as a memorial to Dr William Stewart Irvine, a medical practitioner who had practised in the district for nearly 60 years. It was designed in 1900 by John Leonard in an unassuming manner. The parish district nurse became the first matron of the cottage hospital.

KING JAMES VI HOSPITAL, PERTH

KINROSS INFECTIOUS DISEASES HOSPITAL, Gallowhill Road (demolished) This small local authority isolation hospital was of the temporary wood-and-corrugated iron type, often provided by Speirs and Company. It ceased to function as a hospital around the 1950s when it became a youth hostel, Michael Bruce Hostel named after the celebrated local poet. 

The buildings survived until c.2000, when they were demolished to make way for a small housing development. [Information kindly supplied by gowens2013, of the Devon Angling Association]

KNOCKSUALTACH SANATORIUM, Kirkmichael, near Blairgowrie  This small sanatorium was built in about 1887, seemingly for six ‘lady patients’. It was one of a number established towards the end of the nineteenth century for paying consumptive patients operating on the system of treatment at Nordrach in Germany. This was an open-air based regime (see Glen o Dee Sanatorium, Banchory).

A guide to sanatoria published in 1902 described the local climate as ‘dry and bracing’, and that the open air principle of treatment was combined with a ‘liberal diet’.  The medical officer in charge was Dr Mary Nannetti, who lived on the premises, aided by a trained nurse.  Fees for admission were between 4 and 5 guineas per week, ‘exclusive of all but personal laundry and stimulants’.  By around 1913 the sanatorium also admitted children. [Sources: F. R. Walters and Powell, Sanatoria for Consumptives: A Critical and Detailed Description, 1902, pp.25-6; F. R. Walters, Sanatoria for the Tuberculous, 1913.]

MEIGLE COTTAGE HOSPITAL   The hospital opened c.1911 and was built and endowed by Mrs Edward Cox, of Cardean, in memory of her husband. Built of red brick and harl with a red‑tiled roof, it has a two‑storey central block with a canopied verandah between the projecting single‑storey ward wings. The hospital closed in 1994 and was converted into a care home, called Meigle Country House.

MURRAY ROYAL HOSPITAL, PERTH   The Murray Royal Lunatic Asylum opened in 1827 and was designed by William Burn. In 1821 the Trustees of James Murray had sufficient funds to purchase the site and:

‘from the well known talents and professional eminence of W. Burn Esq. architect, that gentleman was consulted. In the year 1821 Burn furnished the plans of the building, having previously visited the principal asylums both in England and Scotland.’

Originally it had accommodation for 80 patients, officials and staff.

‘The grounds are walled, for the purposes of security, privacy and restraint… there are smaller yards attached to the buildings for the use of patients whose state requires more careful surveillance. In the centre are the apartments of the Superintendent and Matron. Dining-rooms and Bedrooms are large, commodious and cheerful, and sufficiently secure to prevent escape but free from the gloomy appearance of confinement.’

In 1833 Burn added a wing to the north. In 1848 Pitcullen House (formerly Pitcullen Bank) was acquired and fitted up for ‘higher class’ patients.

In 1864 the spiral stair was removed from the octagonal tower and a cupola placed on the roof. In the same year a house was built for the physician superintendent. A lodge was built at about the same time for the head male attendant.

In 1888 new infirmary wings were added to the rear of the main building. At the turn of he century two new villas and a chapel were built. The villas were designed by Maclaren and Mackay and have applied half‑timbering. They were completed in 1902. Between these was the chapel, a distinctive building on the site, the lower walls were constructed of whinstone rubble with red sandstone above. The rubble work on the tower is of an exaggerated random form and is capped by an octagonal cupola. It was designed by the physician superintendent Dr Urquhart, who maintained an interest in architecture.

Gilgal was opened in 1930, intended for voluntary patients. It was designed by Smart, Stewart and Mitchell of Perth. It is a surprisingly old-fashioned style, harking back to the Scottish Arts & Crafts manner of Robert Lorimer in the Edwardian era.

In 1939 a new nurses’ home was opened to the west of the original block and stark by contrast (gentle Art Deco, according to John Gifford in the Pevsner Architectural Guide). It was also designed by Smart, Stewart and Mitchell.

Further additions were made in the 1960s and 1970s including a new recreation hall, kitchen and staff dining room and the Moredun Unit for geriatrics and a day hospital. Some of these buildings were demolished to make way for a new building in about 2012. This rendered all the old buildings on the site redundant and since then they have been boarded up and are now on the Buildings at Risk register. Masterplanning for the re-use and development of the surplus hospital buildings and land commenced in October 2013.  Three options for the development of the site were outlined in March 2014 which sought to retain the built heritage, with varying re-uses and new build elements, assessed by the masterplanners as being significant, namely the main block (with demolition of later wings) the chapel and Pitcullen House. [Sources: Tayside Health Board, Annual Reports and plans at the Hospital. Booklet on history of hospital : Buildings at Risk Register for Scotland; Pevsner Architectural Guides, Perth and Kinross, John Gifford, 2007]

MURTHLY HOSPITAL   Built as the Perth District Asylum, it was designed by Edward & Robertson, of Dundee and opened in 1864. It was the second district asylum to open in Scotland. Five architects submitted plans from which the Dundee architects were chosen. David Smart designed the Italianate administration block at the centre.

In 1885 a cottage hospital was added on the site which later became the nurses’ home. In 1894 two villas were built which were an early attempt at providing accommodation for pauper patients on the colony system. They were named after the pioneers in psychiatry Pinel and Tuke. The hospital closed in 1984. (largely demolished after 2001)

OCHILL HILLS SANATORIUM, MILNATHORT   The Sanatorium was formally opened on 16 July 1902. It was a large, impressive three‑storey building designed by Mr Duncan reminiscent of Tor‑na‑Dee in its scale and setting.

The Sanatorium catered for the well‑to‑do classes, charging five guineas a week. Further pavilions were built in the grounds, to the east, and it became the County Sanatorium for Clackmannan and Stirling, also serving Dunfermline Burgh. There were also a few beds reserved for Glasgow patients.

The hospital closed in 1987. It was largely derelict and abandoned around 2001. The buildings have now been demolished. [Sources: Glasgow Medical Journal, July‑Dec 1902, p.118.]

PERTH POORHOUSE see below, under Rosslyn House

PERTH ROYAL INFIRMARY   The present infirmary was built to replace the original hospital (see separate entry) in 1911‑14 to designs by James Miller. In 1907 the Earl of Kinnoull offered the Directors of Perth Royal Infirmary a site for a new Hospital. There had been lengthy arguments amongst the Directors as to whether a new infirmary should be built or the old infirmary reconstructed. With a new site provided, plans were procured from James Miller for a new hospital containing one hundred and twenty beds and the first sod cut on 15 May 1911. On 26 August the foundation stone was laid and on 10 July 1914 King George V and Queen Mary performed the opening ceremony.

In 1927 a maternity block was opened and a nurses’ home was added in 1931. Further medical wards were added in the following year and new operating theatres and a kitchen block were added in 1935‑6.

In 1948 the hospital was transferred to the National Health Service and in 1962 a new out‑patients’ department was opened. A major new extension scheme was begun in the 1980s. [Sources: Tayside Health Board, Annual Reports, 1838‑1947, at the hospital.]

PERTH ROYAL INFIRMARY (FORMER), GLASGOW ROAD   Now Perth County Buildings. The original Perth Infirmary was built in 1836‑8 to designs by W. M. Mackenzie. Though not on the same scale as Grays Hospital in Elgin, the Perth Royal Infirmary had a similar emphasis on form over function in its design. The Greek revival style gives dignity to an impressive public building.

A dispensary was established in the early 1830s in Perth in South Street and in January 1834 a public meeting was held to consider establishing a fever and surgical hospital in the city. There had been a cholera hospital at Horse Cross and equipment from there was promised to the new venture. Initially the committee considered taking over King James VI hospital but following the gift of 1,000 in 1836, decided to provide a new building. The foundation stone was laid by Lord Kinnaird in 1836 and it opened on 1 October 1838.

In 1891 infectious diseases were admitted into the East and West wings. When the new infirmary was built in 1914 the old infirmary was taken over as a Red Cross VAD Hospital. [Sources: Tayside Health Board, Annual Reports, 1838‑1947, at the present Perth Royal Infirmary.]

PITLOCHRY COMMUNITY HOSPITAL Opened in 2008 to replace the Irvine Memorial Hospital. It was designed by Edinburgh-based architects Campbell and Arnott and built by Stewart Milne Construction, at a cost of £7m, as a public-private partnership developed by the Medical Centres Group and overseen by NHS Tayside.

The building combines a hospital with a general-practitioner surgery (the Atholl Medical Centre), 50-bed care home for the elderly, ambulance depot and district offices for Perth & Kinross Council social work department.

The hospital includes nine en-suite bedrooms for inpatients, a seven-bed specialist dementia assessment unit (known as the Atholl Unit), a general-practitioner led minor injuries unit and casualty service, together with outpatient clinics for general surgery, gynaecology, orthopaedics, dietetics, speech and language, audiology, orthotics, podiatry and psychiatry. [Sources: Scottish Places ]

RATTRAY FEVER HOSPITAL, Westfields Common (demolished)  A small fever hospital had been  established here by 1899 and seems to have survived into the 1930s but had been demolished by the 1960s. [Sources: OS maps, various]

ROSSLYN HOUSE, PERTH (Council Offices)   Rosslyn House was built as the Perth Poorhouse to designs by the local architect Andrew Heiton in 1859. It was just west of the City Infirmary.

It was later renamed the Bertha Home and during the Second World War was used as a military hospital. In 1956 it was upgraded as a home for the elderly. [Sources: Scottish Record Office, plans, RHP 30878/1‑41: see also workhouses.org.]

ST JOHNSTONE’S NURSING HOME, 9-11 BAROSSA PLACE, PERTH The Nursing Home was set up by a Mis Marion Lucy Carphin in 1927, and opened in December that year.  A notice in the Dundee Courier ran:’ Miss Carphin begs to announce that her nursing home is now open to receive patients for surgical, medical or maternity treatment.’ It was a private hospital – nursing homes in the 1920s and 30s usually were private hospitals rather than care homes for the elderly as they tend to be today.

Originally established at No. 11 Barossa Place, the home later extended into the next-door house of No.9. It continued to be St Johnstoun’s Nursing Home right up until 2017, latterly as a home for the elderly, but was sold and planning permission sought for change of use to holiday appartments.

Before 11 Barossa Place was bought by Marion Carphin the house had been a school, and before that was the home of the Bishop of St Andrews and known as St Ninian’s House. (St Ninian’s cathedral was near by, the see of the Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane. The cathedral was designed by William Butterfield and consecrated in 1850.) It was described as such when it was put up for sale in 1910, when it had ‘three public rooms, nine bedrooms, bathroom and other Usual Accommodation, with Garden and Vinery. The House is well situated with Views of the Tay and North inch of Perth. Upset price £2,000’. [The Sctosman, 30 Nov 1910, p.3] 

It was the school that changed the name of the house to St Johnstoun’s, and when Miss Carphin bought it during the depression it had decreased in value – she paid £1,520. She then added an operating theatre, and later a bedroom annexe. She was still at the home during the Second World War, but died in 1945, aged about 73 (she was born in Dunkeld in 1872). She as a cousin of Dr Henry James Mackenzie, York, senrior assistant Medical Officer of The Retreat Mental Hospital, York. [Sources: The Scotsman, 30 Nov 1910, p.3: Dundee Courier, 2 Sept 1927, p.10;  28 Dec 1927, p.1; 1 April 1930, p.1: Leeds Mercury, 20 July 1933, p.5. Planning application 17/00181/FLL.]

ST MARGARET’S HOSPITAL, AUCHTERARDER   In 1926 the hospital was built from funds gifted by A. T. Reid of Auchterarder House to designs by Stewart & Paterson. It opened in 1926 as a memorial to Reid’s parents.

It is a simple but excellently conceived design, with very little ornament but distinguished by scale and composition. An out‑patients’ clinic was added to the rear c.1950. [Sources: Journal of the R.I.B.A. Vol.XXVI, p.343 (ill.).]

STRATHEARN HOME, AUCHTERARDER   The Strathearn Home was built as the Upper Strathearn Poorhouse. Plans were approved in 1862 by the Board of Supervision and the poorhouse opened on 1 November of the following year. It was designed by J. C. Walker of Edinburgh and is a particularly good example of a Scottish poorhouse. [Sources:Scottish Record Office, plans, RHP 30882/1‑25: see also workhouses.org.]

STRATHMORE HOSPITAL, BLAIRGOWRIE Infectious diseases hospital opened on 23 June 1904 to serve a combination of the four burghs in Eastern Perthshire: Alyth, Blairgowrie, Coupar Angus and Rattray.

The burghs agreed to erect a hospital in 1902, following encouragement from the Local Government Board. Plans were drawn up by the local architect Lake Falconer. Some time after the Second World War it became a hospital for the chronic sick. It closed in 1982. [Sources: 3rd Statistical Account of Scotland, Perth and Kinross, 1979: Hansard, 24 Oct 1984 ]

VIEW PARK NURSING HOME, ALYTH   Viewfield Villa was purchased by Andrew Cochrane of Craigisla, and James H. Fyfe‑Jamieson of Ruthven, in September 1921. They gave the property to the Alyth, Meigle and District Nursing Association for the purpose of establishing a nursing home or hospital for the benefit of local patients. It was opened by the Dowager Countess of Airlie in October 1922 and took surgical, medical and maternity cases. With the inception of the National Health Service it was used as a maternity home but was closed when the maternity wing at Blairgowrie Cottage Hospital opened in July 1964. It was then converted into a short‑stay home for the mentally handicapped. It was converted back into a large family home by the Building Workshop in 2014 – photographs and plans can be seen on their website.